Death is Better Than Rosenkreutz
by Phantom Sunstorm
Summary: AU. Teenagers in training, the psychics Crawford, Schuldig, and Farfarello escape from Rosenkreutz. Of course, Este isn't about to let two of their most prized Talents go without a fight.
1. Default Chapter

AU. Teenagers in training, the psychics Crawford, Schuldig, and Farfarello escape from Rosenkreutz. Of course, Este isn't about to let two of their most prized Talents go without a fight.  
  
  
====================================================  
"Great Escape"  
Phantom Sunstorm  
====================================================  
  
  
  
"What are we going to do with him now?"  
  
The two boys stood over the huddled, shivering form with twin expressions of consideration pinching their smooth, hardened faces. Both had their arms crossed, feet spread far apart; both had mouths that were twitching to smirk, but too afraid to so soon after their 'Great Escape.'  
  
"He's already starting to degenerate, he'll need medication soon or he'll turn on us. That's something we can't provide for him." Fifteen-year-old Bradley Crawford rationally pointed out.   
  
Schuldig made a sound in the back of his throat. The fourteen-year-old German telepath tossed his hair away from his face in dismissal. "I'd feel guilty just abandoning him, or destroying him."   
  
Crawford, as he preferred to be called, let loose his unquenching desire to smirk, fear forgotten momentarily in the irony of his partner's words. "Since when did you feel guilty?"   
  
"I was always guilty." Schuldig simply replied. "Joking aside, Brad, we really can't leave him. He could lead them right to us."  
  
The topic of discussion didn't respond to the conversation. Amber eye glazed over, he concentrated on his trembling, on the blood lined in-between his teeth, of the carnage buried deep beneath fingernails.   
  
The low-level psychic had been a crucial element in their escape. If it weren't for the efforts of Farfarello, for turning on the instructors who were leading him back to his cell, his cage, for him smashing and tackling every guard, every psychic and human who threatened to block their path, they never would have made it out of Rosenkreutz. They were in debt to him.  
  
"He's trailing blood. He'll lead them to us either way." Crawford reasoned. The American placed his fingertips up to his mouth and rubbed at his lips thoughtfully. Schuldig cast him a sidelong glance, emerald eyes aglow with curiosity. Crawford shook his head. "Farfarello, stand up."  
  
The twelve-year-old didn't move.  
  
"Farfarello..." Crawford warned.  
  
Schuldig whined, "Farfie..."  
  
"We're leaving Farfarello. You have a choice. Come with us and be free. Or..." A cruel smile played across his face, "be caught and punished."  
  
Pale lips moved, murmuring something that had neither voice nor breath. Crawford tilted his head to the side in confusion and Schuldig sighed. "He said, 'I deserve punishment', Farfie, if you don't come with us. You'll be locked in that padded little cell they like to cage you in until your a hundred-and-thirty-nine with no weapons, television, books, jigsaw puzzles, black cats to sacrifice, virgin pussy, blood of the innocent, whatever the fuck your crazy doped up mind likes to play with again. Ever. So get up, stop drooling, and be a good vampire wannabe."  
  
"Escape is a high crime. They'll fight you, but you won't get very far on your own." Crawford pointed out, using his sooth, almost hypnotic voice to make the offer sound even more appealing, "Come with us and we'll give them a battle. We'll tear them down to hell. Do you want to kill again?"  
  
"Yes." Whether it was the promise of blood, the biblical reference, or Schuldig's half-humored attempt to frighten him, the alabaster Irish boy picked himself off the street corner and straightened to his full height.   
  
Schuldig reached forward and cupped a teasing hand around Farfarello's face. "That's a good psychopath." Farfarello tilted his head in askance, but was ignored by his provoker as Schuldig suddenly whipped his head around to the side, paling. "They're coming."  
  
A normal human wouldn't have been able to detect the subtle shifting in the air, the cat paw footsteps across the roofs, the team moving down the alley. But a high level telepath would. No one in Rosenkreutz could mask their presence from Schuldig's fearful ability.   
  
That was why Bradley Crawford chose to run with him.   
  
"Let's go."   
  
  
=====================================================================  
  
  
No one had ever escaped Rosenkreutz.   
  
No one had ever made it pass the gates.   
  
The plans of Crawford and Schuldig had been quite ingenious really. Too clever for boys their age; frightenly clever for boys their age. The council had been worried about both boys power from the start. They should never have met, Head Councilman Charles Leistung knew that now. They should never have met.   
  
"Herr Hoztmann, what do you plan to do about this problem?" Head Councilwoman Fran Krauler asked. The ancient telepath sat on her department chair as an aristocrat would a thrown. She looked like European nobility, with her wrinkles stretched in the right places, her gray eyes cold and sharp, her hair pulled back into a perfect bun. A gray cat sat in her lap, melting into the hand that gently kneaded its head.  
  
Leistung raised an eyebrow as the security manager bowed to the woman. "I've sent three sweeper teams to take care of the problem. I promise you, Frau Krauler, they will not get far."  
  
"They had better not." Intoned Ruth-Marie Collins, Rosenkreutz head Hypnotist.   
  
Krauler appeared amused, "You'll make sure there are no...incidents? Especially with that Manipulator. He's very volatile."   
  
"Nothing will happen." Hoztmann vowed.   
  
Leistung was less than assured.   
  
  
================================================================  
  
  
They ran for several hours. They ran until their lungs burned, until their cheeks turned red, until even Farfarello could feel pain from the pounding of his heart. Crawford kept them moving, dropping back to grab the two younger boys by the arms and urging them to go forward. The night passed them by and still they ran.  
  
"Cr-crawford," Schuldig wheezed, stumbling every other step. "We need to stop."   
  
Even the American was starting to falter, though he would never admit to it, he was as ready to collapse as the other two were. Crawford ran them another half a block for good measure, so that when they finally came to a halt, it didn't seem like he was doing it because he was tired, or because he was listening to Schuldig's nagging.   
  
"We'll stop here...I think...we lost them." He cursed the frailty of his voice, the gasps his burning lungs had to take; his life in general. Crawford hunched over and held himself at the knees for a second, than straightened. The others could act wounded, but not he. He was the oldest, he was the leader of this operation, the brains, the oracle, the perfectionist. Crawford turned his back to them so that they couldn't see the red in his face, or his struggle to regulate his breathing.  
  
Farfarello trotted ahead of them, decreasing his speed slowly. He eventually made an arc in his pace to get back to where they were, where he promptly sat down and laid his head into his knees. Farfarello didn't openly gasp like Schuldig did, or like Crawford tried not to do. His lips were clamp shut, single eye heavily dilated, he breathed largly in and out of his nose, with such intensity that it looked painful. But Farfarello was a Manipulator, wasn't he? He didn't feel pain.  
  
Lucky him, Schuldig thought with a frown. He had one hand against his chest, wondering if it was possible for someone his age to go into cardiac arrest. Maybe not. But perhaps his heart would explode. Yes, That would be fitting. Crawford would look over at him, grunt, and haul his body into the nearest dumpster, or hand his corpse over to Farfarello to snack on.  
  
He couldn't understand why he had agreed to follow the Oracle into his crackpot plan. Yes, he could understand why. Better death than capture, that's what Farfarello had said when they asked him if he would help, if he would run away alongside them without chickening out. Better death than Rosenkreutz.  
  
Still, Schuldig wished he had escaped with a group more personable than Bradley Crawford and Jei "Farfarello" Harris. Crawford's idea of a good time was standing against a wall looking intelligent and threatening, either that or he was stuck in his studies. Occasionally Schuldig had seen him around the leisure hall with an American newspaper in hand. And Farfarello... Farfarello was a legend among the Institute. One of the strongest in his psychic category, but completely nuts. He was always locked up somewhere because of his unstable nature. He was a cutter with a vendetta against God. He was rarely seen in the training rooms and never at the school.   
  
Two total bores, Schuldig decided.   
  
"We need a place to hide." Crawford commented, he had finally caught his breath.  
  
"I'm cold." The German pointed out.  
  
"We have no money, so perhaps a warehouse... maybe even the sewers. A sheltered, secure location..." He was plotting out loud, as he tended to do when he was exhausted.   
  
"And hungry."   
  
"Rosenkreutz already has a sweeper team rooting us out. I don't believe that we really outran them. They could just be waiting for us to let our guard down, to exhaust ourselves. Why didn't I think of that?"  
  
Farfarello looked up and bared his teeth in a grin. "Oracle..." He accused.   
  
Crawford should have foreseen that.  
  
"I have to piss." Schuldig added.  
  
"Thank you, Schuldig, that information is very helpful." He snapped. The other boy shrugged. He sighed. "It's true though, we wouldn't be able to loose the Sweepers by merely running away from them. They're out there, waiting for us."  
  
How thoughtless could he have been? It was only now that he realized the holes in his plan. Such a large part of his mind had been devoted solely to figuring out how to get OUT of Rosenkreutz. He didn't have time to sequence any further in time before they had a chance to enact his original plan. It was foolish of him to think everything would work out, once they passed the gates. That the Sweepers wouldn't come after them. Terribly foolish.   
  
Crawford wanted to curse out at his own stupidity. Out of the sudden wave of hopelessness that tied around his gut.   
  
But he couldn't, he didn't have time to, because at that moment the first of fifteen Sweepers dropped out of the darkness and aimed their weapons. Schuldig turned and stared.   
  
Farfarello let out a battle scream. 


	2. Chapter 2

Sweepers were low level psychics with combat abilities that made up for their lack of psychokentic power. They were created to serve two purposes: the first being to capture resisting Talents, those who successfully ran from their first "invitation" into the organization, Este. Their second duty was to capture escaped psychics. That obligation was almost forgotten among the Sweepers, as a successful escape hadn't occurred within the last four generations.  
  
So, what made these three brats special?  
  
"Farfarello, be care--"  
  
"YIYIYIYI."  
  
Schuldig sighed, "Why do I even bother?"   
  
The pale boy charged, fists poised into claws, ready to rip at the tender flesh of the stomach, the eye, the neck. But the targets were armored, wearing black vests and head gears, heavily armed and masked, they easily caught the screaming Farfarello by the wrists and flipped him around, throwing him at Crawford.  
  
A light passed the Oracles eyes and he easily stepped out of the way. His breath had begun to rise again, body reacting not to the fear of capture, but the terror of having to run again. "So, you were just waiting to wear us out?"  
  
"Punishment will be minimal if you surrender right now." The Sweeper leader informed, the same words he said to the five, eight, ten year olds who ran from recruitment.   
  
Farfarello picked himself up and balled his fists, tensing up like a cornered animal. The enemy circled them, weapons drawn. As they came closer Schuldig and Crawford identified what they were carrying. Shock rifles. They hadn't been ordered to destroy.   
  
"I can't read any of them." Schuldig hissed to Crawford, green eyes flickering nervously from the American to the Sweepers. He was able to detect them the first time, why were they coming up as a blank now?  
  
"They have some sort of cloaking device." Crawford knowingly whispered back. He couldn't just say they were masking their 'spiritual energy.' Expressions like that had always come across to him as whimsical and superstitious. He didn't believe in gifts, souls, or spirits, powers such as telekinesis, precognitation, and other abilities exhibited in Rosenkreuzt were merely the result of chemical imbalances and hyperactivity occurring in the brain. To him, the term power was too grandiose and self-glorifying.   
  
The Sweepers inched forward.   
  
"What now fearless leader?" Schuldig whined, eyes shifting back and forth more than ever.   
  
"Just wait." Crawford replied.  
  
The German wanted to scream in annoyance and ball in fear. What just happened? A moment ago all the telepath was reading from Crawford was fear and doubt in his own plans. Now, in the face of danger, he suddenly became cool and collective? He was just as clueless as the rest of them before the enemy jumped in.  
  
Had one of his predictions come true? Had a vision passed by Crawford's mind that Schuldig didn't notice? That was hard to believe, all other oracles of his age and level usually grabbed their head and expressed physical discomfort when a vision hit. Schuldig had seen this in Crawford before. He couldn't have seen anything.  
  
Farfarello was aiming to attack again. The Irish boy would continue to throw himself at the enemy and get slammed to the floor until he was either dead or unconscious. He rather be crushed than have to surrender willingly.  
  
"Shoot the Manipulator." The Sweeper commander ordered, "Telepath, Oracle, on the ground, hands over your head."  
  
"We're not going down that easily." Schuldig fired a mental attack at the three bodies closest to him, but his thoughts just bounced back. Whatever they were using to cloak themselves also served to shield his psychic retaliation. "Damn."   
  
"On the ground. Hands on your head." The commander ordered again.  
  
The two younger boys began to protest, but were interrupted by Crawford's hypnotic drone. "Do as he says."  
  
Schuldig gasped. "What?"  
  
The American began to lower himself to his knees, his face remarkably calm, almost amused. His eyes trained forward, appearing focused on the shoulder of the commander.   
  
The current situation wasn't acceptable to the psychopath. Farfarello tore off, recklessly rushing again at the Sweepers, this time being shot instead of pushed back. Surrounded by a wave of electric current, Farfarello fell backwards, stunned. His mind couldn't register the pain, but that didn't stop his body from reacting to the electrocution.   
  
"On the ground!" A weapon was aimed at the remaining psychic.   
  
"Schuldig." Crawford snapped, already on his belly.   
  
His eyes stung and for a laughable moment, he thought he might cry out in frustration. What was the point? Schuldig thought. My god, what was the point? All of this planning, late night meetings, the risk, the escape, for... what? An hour of freedom? Did Crawford want to be punished? Was this a game to him? Was he planning this all along?  
  
"I should've known this was a SHIT PLAN." The fourteen-year-old bellowed, dropping suddenly to the ground and trembling, he placed his hands on top of his head.   
  
God, he was stupid.  
  
Stupid to ever trust Bradley Crawford.   
  
  
================================================================  
  
  
He had never talked to the oracle before. Crawford was a year older and two academic levels higher than himself. His power put him on a different training schedule than the telepath, and they hardly gave each other a second glance at the gym. But there he was one day, three weeks before the escape, standing behind him in line for the drinking fountain.  
  
(Schuldig.) The mental thought was a knife edge pulse in the German's mind.   
  
Leaning over the fountain, his mouth stopped working. The water ran over his lips, down the drain. Suddenly he became painfully aware of how close the American Talent was to his body. He didn't respond.   
  
Crawford's voice played across his head, a small murmur, a background noise:   
  
{I'm dreaming of you.}   
  
  
====================================================================  
  
In Rosenkreutz powerful telepaths lurked in every corridor, always monitoring the thought of its recruits. There were ways to mask their thoughts, to make them less evident than others. Children were taught that a person thought with two voices. Their direct consciousness, that said things like, (Class beings in 10 minutes, Jimmy's cute, ect.), and the subconscious, that appeared even in waking moments, whispering out odd, off-topic comments, {I'm scared. I'm cold.} without warning.  
  
The monitoring telepaths rarely paid attention to the subconscious thoughts. In large groups, it was almost impossible to detect them, unless they were focusing one on person impractically. It wasn't in the children's training, but the more clever Talents, like Crawford, could learn to focus their subconscious and use it for communication.  
  
But he still had to be careful.   
  
That night he climbed into bed with the other four oracles in his dorm. He tried not to act suspicious, though usually he stayed sitting up with a night light into the early hours of the morning, studying. No one questioned his turn in. Perhaps he was just tired. The great Bradley Crawford.   
  
{"I found you."} Schuldig appeared almost the moment he closed his eyes. The telepath, the dream walker, was near tickled to find that someone like Crawford had taken an interest in him. That someone like Crawford 'dreamed' about him.   
  
With that assumption in mind, Schuldig waltzed into the American's dreams surrounded by a shower of rose petals and nothing else.   
  
Crawford was mildly shocked. {"Put some clothes on!"}  
  
Schuldig spread his arms, disappointed. {"You don't approve?"} He tilted his head to the side, and smirked, {"Alright. Imagine me in something sexy that you can undress me from."}  
  
Taking control of the dream, Schuldig suddenly found himself adorn in a modest pair of sweatpants and matching shirt. He frowned. {"That's not very sexy."}  
  
{"I have a...proposition for you."}  
  
{"My mother warned me American's were boring, but this, my god..."} He paused, {"A proposition? Haven't heard that one in awhile."}  
  
Crawford simultaneously cursed his decision and the fact that Schuldig was the only telepath he could use for his purposes.   
  
The dreamscape was dull and gray, they were in Crawford's mind and everything, including the two boys, were starting to fade; becoming half- formed. This was a sign of a subconscious switch, when the brain moved from one dream to another. That annoyed Schuldig.   
  
{"Listen... I could be having wild monkey sex with a pyrokentic right now."}  
  
The other did something unexpected. He smirked. {"Listen, have you ever thought of..."}  
  
  
==================================================================  
  
  
At fifteen, Crawford was a master of faking his thoughts and subconscious. Schuldig was aware of this. He should have known better than to have merely trusted the damnable American's surface thoughts. Crawford really wasn't sure of himself at all. He tricked him.  
  
Now here he was, on the ground, lips practically kissing the dirty pavement. It was a cold night in Vienna, he could see his breath, he was miserable, and he was about to be bound and drug away back to Rosenkreutz for a certainly unspeakable punishment.   
  
Next to him, Bradley Crawford lay, mind a complete blank.   
  
Schuldig briefly pondered using his last few seconds of 'freedom' to break Crawford's skull open with his boot.   
  
The Sweepers inched forward, stepping over Farfarello's body and taking out their tranquilizer guns. At least they wouldn't be shocked into submission, but they also wouldn't be allowed to be taken back awake. Schuldig awaited darkness.   
  
Crawford's gaze flickered upwards, at the same spot he had been staring when he first lowered to his knees.   
  
A series of gagged screams cut the air, causing Schuldig to jump. He wondered if Farfarello had gotten up and in a last dramatic attempt, jumped one of the Sweepers. But no, the first thing he saw was the prone body of his former psychotic partner. If not Farfarello than...  
  
One by one the Sweepers were swept off their feet. They were thrown at the neck, as if closed line with a thick metal bar. The circle flew backwards, flipping deftly into the air and slamming into the pavement. From the ground Schuldig could feel the uncomfortable prickle and pressure of a kinetic energy wave.  
  
Another psychic?  
  
Crawford leapt up, snatching one of the shock guns from the fallen guards. He began firing back and forth, hitting each stunned Sweeper in the chest. They spasm and stilled.   
  
Unbelieving, Schuldig picked himself up and took a gun. He was too stunned to fire.  
  
Crawford, the son of a bitch, had been planning this all along.   
  
The Sweepers were practically smoking when the American finished with them. He dropped the used rifle and picked up another, charging it to fire again, in case any of the charred bodies dare to even twitch.   
  
Schuldig's eyes were wide. "What...HAPPENED?"  
  
"I foresaw all of this." Crawford explained simply.  
  
"WHATEVER HAPPENED TO WANTING TO CURSE AT YOUR OWN STUPIDITY? FOR BEING FOOLISH?? TERRIBLY FOOLISH???" Schuldig screamed, his voice cracking.  
  
"...all part of the plan. The Sweepers are telepaths, low level, almost useless telepaths, but telepaths nonetheless. They can read high emotional surface thoughts, and I had to lure them out. You caught some of my 'doubt' yourself, it was a very believable performance." His calm monotone made Schuldig want to tear his throat out. "I needed them to come out here. At this spot. You understand?"  
  
"No."  
  
Crawford made a noise that might have been laughter.  
  
Footsteps sounded from the street. Another Sweeper team, the German suspected, whirling around.  
  
A boy, a very young boy, stepped into the circle of fallen bodies. He was pale, weary, but extremely pleased with himself.  
  
"Schuldig, may I introduce to you my accomplice." Crawford made a lavish wave of his hands.  
  
Schuldig stared.  
  
"A telekinetic... Naoe Nagi." 


	3. Chapter 3

At what point did Schuldig loose his partnership with the Bradley Crawford and become his pawn?  
  
From the very beginning, he realized.   
  
Naoe Nagi was a slight boy, deceitfully thin and breakable. To the normal observer it would be unimaginable to think that a child like that could hold such awesome power. But Crawford and Schuldig weren't the average observer, now were they?   
  
Whatever self-indulged pleasure had been on the Asian's face a moment ago had quickly melted away, smooth features retreating into a blank mask of nothingness that seemed to be a natural expression on the little telekinetic. He stood there almost at attention, arms held straight but limply at his sides, fingers clenched every so slightly, legs stiffly pressed together. He seemed either ready to salute, run away, or crumble in ashes. He frightened Schuldig.  
  
Crawford ignored both of them. The cunning mastermind was once again on his knees, leaning over the body of the Sweeper commander, rummaging through his equipment like a common pickpocket.   
  
"I'm not sure exactly," He said, thinking out loud again, Schuldig wondered if this was another trick. If another Sweeper team wasn't out there, ease- dropping, and Crawford just felt that they were too stupid or unskilled to simply read his mind. "what they use to mask their...ah...thought process, but if we can find it, it will be very useful."  
  
Schuldig wrapped his arms around himself, approaching the other boy with an upturned chin and cruel smile. "Rambling American, wasting your breath, you know what you're looking for."  
  
Hands paused inside the commander's vest. Crawford spared a glance over his shoulder. "My plans end here. It's anybody's game, Schuldig."  
  
Nagi remained silent, and Farfarello still hadn't moved.  
  
"How did you work this out?" Schuldig demanded.   
  
"Be patient," Crawford murmured. He ripped the helmet off the commander and was surprised to find that he recognized the face underneath it. It was a young man, a year older than himself, an empath if he remembered correctly, they were in the same micro-economics class.   
  
Schuldig caught the train of thought. "Is he dead?" He asked, even though the empath's twisted neck was easy to see from where he stood.   
  
Examining the helmet, Crawford snorted in disgust. He tossed the cap aside. "I thought... wait," Fingers came down on the commander's death white throat, tracing around to the back of the neck. He felt something sharp and metal-like buried into the skin. Eyes narrowing, Crawford pinched the item and ripped it out. The tiny diskette gave way with a dry slurp.   
  
"That's vile." Schuldig commented.  
  
The attachment appeared to be a computer chip, the kind found inserted into a computer tower to increase memory capabilities or conduct energy. It was small, half the size of a finger, and had jagged razors prodding from its bottom.   
  
"Nagi, could you remove three more of these from the others?" Crawford requested softly.  
  
The child reacted without hesitation. The Sweepers surrounding them jutted back and forth as a pair of psychic claws tore at their helmets. Nagi's arms were raised, brow furrowed in concentration. Around him the helmets cracked and shattered, falling to debris and mixing with blood. One of the body's was victim to too much telekinetic force and his head caved in. Nagi didn't seem to mind.  
  
The chips slurped out and floated to Crawford.   
  
Nagi swayed on his feet.   
  
He's very good, Schuldig thought. "What are those?"  
  
The Oracle grabbed the attachments and attempted to wag the chunks of flesh and pools of blood from them. "I believe," he said, "these are what the Sweepers used to become undetectable to your scans. If we..."  
  
"Whoa, wait." Schuldig interrupted. He made a gesture with his arms, stepping away from the crazed American. "I'm not penning that to the back of my spinal cord, if that's what you're thinking."  
  
"It's quite effective." A light voice informed from the side. The two turned to gap at Nagi, who hadn't said anything until then. "And easy to install. You would assume you needed an access port to plug it into, but it attaches to the back of your neck without any technological support. The Sweepers cannot read you."  
  
His voice was haunting, it brought a cold shiver to Schuldig's back, and he suddenly felt more afraid than he ever had in Rosenkreuzt, or in the alleyway. Nagi spoke in such a robotic deadpanned that he seemed surreal. Completely unattached to everything around him.   
  
"That's how you came around without them noticing."  
  
Nagi touched the back of his head, fingers brushing where the data chip he stole from the Sweepers that originally chased him must have been. "Yes."  
  
Schuldig tilted his head, "How old are you?"  
  
"...I rather not tell."  
  
Back to his search, Crawford retrieved a bowie knife and a tranquilizer gun. He went from body to body, collecting darts and storing them in a carrying pouch he had lifted from the commander. "This should take care of Farfarello until we decide what to do with him."   
  
He approached the unmoving teen, weapon in hand.  
  
"Don't shoot him up, you'll kill him." Schuldig warned, "He's already knocked the hell out, leave him alone."  
  
"You didn't mention a third partner, Bradley Crawford." Nagi suddenly accused.  
  
"Trust me." The oracle replied. "He's useful. Very unpredictable, but useful. Schuldig, would you like to carry him?"  
  
"No."  
  
"That wasn't a request." Crawford moved away from Farfarello and stared down the street ahead of them. "We need to find cover and get these implants on. The second Sweeper team will be here soon."  
  
Muttering, Schuldig wrapped one arm under Farfarello's knees and the other under his back. He was surprised at how light and thin, skeletally thin, the Irish boy was. Rising to his feet, he flipped his hair in the older boy's direction. "I still have a lot of questions..." A smirk, "Bradley Crawford."  
  
The brunettes lips thinned. "Patience." He said.  
  
He and Nagi began to walk away from the main road, towards the city. Schuldig remained in place for a moment, staring at their retreating form. He regarded the body in his hands. "Patience." He mumbled. "Crawford. You'll find I have all the patience in the world."  
  
He began to walk.  
  
"...but the world doesn't have much patience left for us."  
  
  
========================================================  
  
  
What was the point of Fran Krauler asking, "have the boys been returned yet?" She already knew the answer.  
  
Charles Leistung's eyes were stuck to the giant window glass, the gray pane that covered one wall of his well-dressed office. Both hands stationed clinging to the silver top of his walking cane, an antique piece, a wolf head with glinting ruby eyes. The children of Rosenkreuzt had learned to associate the snarling beast with the Headmaster, choosing often to focus on its glowing eyes instead of Leistung's thin, hawk-like face.   
  
Krauler weighed his silence, mouth turning upwards in her statue-isque way. She stood behind Leistung, hands clasped behind her back, one foot lifted slightly off the floor, rolling from side to side. "The other council members won't admit it, but they are beginning to fear that oracle and his little flunkies."  
  
"Bradley Crawford had a contact." Leistung whispered.  
  
Bradley Crawford has somehow passed their crackpot teams of telepaths, their 1984 security, and communicated with someone on the outside. But with who? And how?  
  
Thoughts heavy, Krauler shared her fellow psychics view of the clouded window. They let a moment pass in silence, before the woman gave in and let out a sigh. "Inform me the moment they're captured. We are Este, we cannot fear anyone..." The woman turned on her heels, she was remarkably graceful for a woman of her age.   
  
Leistung listened to her leave. His breath caught in his throat as she paused at the large double doors dividing his office from the administrator corridor.   
  
"...Least of all three little boys."  
  
The door opened and closed.   
  
=========================================================  
  
  
The fourth shadow let out another scream as his head scrapped against the pipe ceiling.   
  
The great, powerful, sexy Schuldig was cold, wet, miserable, and worst of all: starving. He treaded water, freezing cold water that came up to his ankles and soaked into his shoes. Every other fumbled step in the narrow walkway caused his head to smash against the ceiling. Cobwebs clung and gathered around his once beautiful orange-red hair.  
  
"This is a sewer!" He pointed out.   
  
Little Nagi, leading the four, released a bemused snort, "Nothing gets by him."   
  
The youngest psychic moved easily down the dark pathway. A head shorter than the German, he had plenty of room to stretch out. Nagi was able to scamper across the water without even bending over. It wasn't fair.  
  
Something jumped onto Schuldig's shoulder and crawled up his neck, onto his face.  
  
Letting out a shriek, the fourteen-year-old dropped Farfarello onto the ground and slapped at his cheeks. The panic attack caused him to bang his head three more times onto the ceiling before he settled down.   
  
Farfarello was rudely awaken to a mouthful of cool, slimy water. But he didn't mind, he couldn't taste it anyway. Though he was startled to find himself half submerged in such a cold, unfamiliar area; he didn't remember falling asleep in some place wet.  
  
The Irish child sat up and peered owlishly into the darkness, single amber eye adjusting quickly to the lack of light, tracing the outline of Schuldig's shivering form, than Crawford's, than Nagi's. Where was he?  
  
Whimpering, the body next to him answered his question, "I'm in a sewer!" he wailed.  
  
"This isn't a sewer, Schuldig." Crawford cautiously pointed out. "It's a storm drain, run-off from the streets comes through here, not sewage."  
  
"Thank you, o'fearless leader, I feel sooooo much better." Normally Schuldig wasn't so melodramatic, so out of control, so emotional. But he had to be given some leeway, he had just busted out of a place that would have put Roswell's security and secrecy to shame; he had been attacked by a bunch of freaks with laser guns; and he really, really hungry. He'd return to his normal cool-headed, witty character later, after the trauma had worn off and he had gotten something to eat.  
  
After random arachnids stopped trying to burrow and nest in his head. 


	4. Chapter 4

"Answers, Brad. Now."  
  
Under the city, in a crawl space, it wasn't so cold. The tunnels must have sloped upwards, because the water slowly receded as they pressed on, passing fewer and fewer storm drains and man holes as they burrowed into the darkness. Nagi had a flashlight, which he lit every so often, whenever there was a turn to navigate or a beam to cross over. But mostly he saved the light.   
  
They eventually winded up in a bulged, right below a large pothole. The area was barely five feet round and almost five feet high. Schuldig and Crawford had the most trouble crawling around the tunnels, as both boys were well over the five foot barrier. Nagi walked along with maddening ease, and little Farfarello barely skimmed the ceiling's top.  
  
Now they were resting in a circle, pressed side-to-side, with the oracle and telekinetic on one end, the telepath and manipulator on another.   
  
Farfarello was shivering, but Schuldig ignored him.  
  
Crawford shrugged his shoulders, "What do you want to know?"  
  
"How did you contact someone from the outside? And who is the that tiny tot?"   
  
Nagi blinked. "Hey."  
  
"Hmm," It was the sound Crawford made when he laughed, a soft chortling that didn't extend beyond a second or a sigh. He really was too damn refined. "It's quite simply really...I used you."  
  
If Schuldig wasn't so angry he might have commented about his partner sounding like Mr. Green or Colon Mustard, revealing his great plot in killing Mr. Body.  
  
The American tapped a finger against his head, "Those secret meetings, the dreams... you've commented yourself that they were always hazy. Like my subconscious wasn't there all the way or paying full attention to you?"  
  
"Tch." Snorted the telepath with dismissal.   
  
"Well, I wasn't." Crawford made that same odd sigh of laughter. "I was using your abilities to invade the subconscious as a channel to contact someone from the outside, Nagi."  
  
The boy nodded at this.  
  
Schuldig's emerald eyes were wide and round. "...what?"   
  
How did Crawford do this without his noticing?   
  
"I kept you distracted with out conversation. In actuality, I didn't need you at all to escape... beyond using your mind as a telephone wire." Crawford shrugged, "If it weren't for our continued conversation during that time, Rosenkreuzt would have noticed my contact with Nagi. Any readings they might have pulled from you or myself would only have caught the first level dream, our conversation."  
  
Farfarello continued to shake besides Schuldig, though now it was out of laughter. "That's funny." He whispered. "Tools."  
  
"You were just using me?" Schuldig screamed. He was already aware of that, painfully aware of that, but he still wanted to murder the gloating American. If they weren't in such a small space, he would have.  
  
"I got you out, didn't I?" Crawford replied dully.  
  
"The security breech in Rosenkreuzt was my doing." Nagi spoke up, his voice becoming softer and softer with each word. "I manipulated their monitoring systems, I released the primary locks, the gates, the doors. I held some of the guards back."  
  
Schuldig's eyes narrowed, "Who are you?"   
  
Nagi tilted his head, "Crawford said he would take me to America if I helped him."  
  
"America?"  
  
Farfarello, who at first had been sniggering, released his breath into a loll of moans and growls. Pale hands reached up and snatched at his blood red hair, he rocked forward, so suddenly that Schuldig jerked away from him. The maniac howled and attempted to tackle Crawford, but was grabbed by the oracle and penned down.   
  
A sedative was pumped into his neck through the gun they had secured from the Sweepers.  
  
Nagi turned on the flashlight, terrified. "He's insane."  
  
Schuldig sneered. "Nothing gets by him."   
  
Crawford held Farfarello in place until the boy went limp. Sighing, he lifted his body as much as he could in the small crawl space and passed it over to Schuldig. This time, the German didn't protest.   
  
"Tell me about the boy," he demanded, "now."  
  
"You recall the terrorist attack, five months ago, on the Parliament building?"   
  
The other boy was given a moment to search his thoughts, bringing up images and class discussions. The event dawned on him, Schuldig nodded slowly, mouth forming into an 'o'. "A...bomb, wasn't it? Went off, took out the whole building, right?"  
  
"Yes and no."  
  
Schuldig remembered seeing news broadcasts covering the explosion. Now that he thought of it, it wasn't really an explosion, more of an implosion. Like the structure was being sucked into itself by a...  
  
"That was you?" He gapped at Nagi. "You asshole!" Schuldig lashed out into the darkness, foot catching the child's leg. Nagi tensed up and growled. "That fucking news flash interrupted Buffy! You're the asshole who cancelled my show, you little shit! Do you know how many tries it took me to schedule TV time? And I had to request an international channel. Damn you!"  
  
"...he's insane, too." Nagi observed.  
  
"Oh, shut up, bite size." Schuldig snapped back.   
  
"Enough. Both of you." Crawford put his head in his hands and mumbled something about being stuck with a bunch of degenerates. "May I continue?"   
  
Nagi made and noise of approval and Schuldig sneered.   
  
"It didn't take much effort to conclude that the Parliament attack wasn't caused by a bomb at all, or that a new telekinetic didn't get assigned to the school immediately afterwards. I worked on the school computers and found a message board concerning the topic, it was for research at first, but then I took notice of one user who was very neutral about the issue and at the same time, suspiciously knowledgeable..."  
  
"Crawford and I contacted each other through e-mail...encrypted of course." Nagi added in his half-whisper, "then we met at night...psychically through a..."  
  
"Dreamscape." Schuldig said.  
  
"Yes."  
  
The German sighed, "You risked everything on that, Crawford?"  
  
"I knew my plan would be successful." The oracle answered. Schuldig released another breath of air and turned to Nagi, intent on questioning him about the Parliament building and his audacity of inflicting terrorism on a media-conscience public while Buffy was playing. Crawford stopped him, "About these trackers..."  
  
The flashlight turned on, exploding in Schuldig's face. He turned away from the yellow-gray beam, lip curled. Brat, he did that on purpose. The two dark haired boys huddled together, examining what they had picked off the Sweepers. "You're sure this will work?"   
  
"It's kept them off my back for the last five months." Nagi replied. He poked at one of the chips, turning it over in his palm. "After I knew what they were for, I began to assume that they worked by injecting some sort of chemical into your brain that nullifies your presence. But after studying it for awhile, I realized that nothing is released at all. Nothing chemical anyway."  
  
"You must have a lot of free time on your hands." Schuldig commented.  
  
Nagi ignored him. "They work by emitting some sort of electric pulse. I attached one to my neck, and it worked. But I don't think they're the only thing hiding my aura. Schuldig, can you sense me now?" Large, dead brown eyes turned to the telepath, who nodded. "...that's what I thought. I checked some of the other bodies, they have another one of these chips...larger, in their heads, wedged above the cerebellum--"  
  
"You're a sick, sick, sick child!" Schuldig cried in mock-horror. He grinned and tightened his grip on Farfarello's body, who still sat in his lap. If the psychopath was awake, he'd love this conversation.   
  
Nagi gave him a dull look. "I think they're used to cloak from the stronger telepaths. Dare I admit, Schuldig?"  
  
"He may be a complete idiot, but he's very powerful." Crawford agreed. He held one of the chips up to the light. "Let's try this on Farfarello..."  
  
  
==========================================================================  
  
  
Schuldig felt like he had a leech sucking the back of his neck. It hurt. It really hurt. The fact that he kept rubbing the half buried chip probably didn't help. But if it meant being able to elude those Sweepers, than he'd bare the pain...  
  
Actually, Nagi had to hold him down with the last of his strength to keep him from crawling away.  
  
On a happier note (for Schuldig anyway) the child passed out from exhaustion afterwards. At least he wasn't the only one suffering.   
  
That left him alone with Bradley Crawford, who was now responding to every verbal and mental comment with: shut up, I'm trying to sleep.  
  
Schuldig sulked, he could be in a warm bed right now, dreaming about having wild monkey sex with a pyrokentic.   
  
"I don't like the way you're cuddling Farfarello." Crawford's voice pierced the darkness without warning. Schuldig jumped, he hadn't even detected a shift of consciousness before the American spoke. Maybe it was the new implant, maybe it was just Crawford's remarkable ability of veiling his surface thoughts.   
  
He gripped Farfarello a little bit tighter. "We're exchanging body heat, it's nothing sexual...Bradley." The twelve-year-old lay limp against his chest, head tucked under Schuldig's neck, breathing slow and heavy.   
  
"Crawford."  
  
"Bradley Crawford."  
  
"No, just Crawford."  
  
He laughed. "Alright...Crawford." He preened, "Mmm, I never thought I'd spend a night in a sewer...storm drain, whatever. It's kind of sexy."  
  
"Good night, Schuldig."  
  
"Dream of me, Crawford."  
  
  
===================================================================  
  
When, during the night, did the freak wake up and get a hold of the knife?  
  
Poke. Poke. Poke.  
  
Schuldig moaned and tried to bat whatever it was that was jabbing his side away. He was cold, tired, and cramped. He had fallen asleep some where hard, his neck was sore... was he at a field exercise? Perhaps he had been knocked out. Then it was time for him to wake up and be yelled at by his team leader.  
  
Poke. Poke.  
  
Since when did team leaders poke people?  
  
"Are you dead?"   
  
Schuldig opened his eyes and sighed. "Oh. Hello Farfarello." 


	5. Chapter 5

"...let me get your check."  
  
"Oh..." Schuldig's slightly nasal tenor stopped the woman in her tracks. He leaned back in his chair and flashed his most playful smile, fresh gaze and confident manner betraying the visage of a boy who had just spent a night sleeping in the sewers. "We already paid."   
  
His voice was airy and vampiric, the two gazes met, the waitress' eyes hazed over slightly.   
  
What an odd group they must have been, Crawford mused, as he glanced across the table. All four boys had wolfed down their meals with disturbing speed and desperation. Even the great Bradley Crawford had been unable to educate his hunger and submitted to the urge just to inhale his eggs and sausage. Farfarello had dug in unabashed, so caught up in stuffing his face, that he made a grab for Schuldig's orange juice, mistaking it for his milk shake, and gulped it half down before either boy noticed.   
  
Aside from eating as if they had never seen food before, they were also mismatched and out of place. How often was it that four young boys came in, order a giant breakfast platter for themselves, with no adult there to supervise or pay for them? They couldn't have been family, Crawford was so plainly American, Nagi so Asian, Farfarello so plainly snow white and round with the features of Irish, Scottish, or British blood, and Schuldig so sun-worn and sharp featured Germanic. Their ages obviously varied, they couldn't have been friends. So what were they?  
  
"I'm going to check on that," The waitress said.   
  
Schuldig batted his eyes, "Do you really have to?" His smile widen and he tilted his head to the side, red-orange hair cascaded down his shoulders. "Don't you trust me?"   
  
Nagi shoved a piece of fruit in his mouth to keep from snorting.   
  
Crawford drummed his fingers on the table, wondering how they were going to do this. This whole surviving thing. Este, Rosenkreuzt, and Sweepers aside, they stood out.   
  
Who screamed for attention the most was debatable. Perhaps Farfarello, because it wasn't every day one saw a red haired albino child with a deadly calm amber eye and a hole in his face. Farfarello had come to Rosenkreuzt with his right eye taped away with cotton swabs and medical wrap, he had an eye patch for awhile, but it was quickly torn off in one of his frequent temper tantrums. He preferred to go around with the gap exposed and frightening, half because it felt better in the open air, where the wound could breath, half because it scared the other students.   
  
On top of that wound, he had two long pink scars running along his face. One slashed across his lip, the other crossed down his eyebrow to his ear. Just looking at him, any normal person would have been filled with pity, thinking the poor child had been attacked, mutilated. Crawford suspected the scars were probably self made, and he would have more, if Rosenkreuzt didn't keep him away from everything sharp and pointy.   
  
He didn't fidget or fret the way a child his age should have. Farfarello possessed a cat-like grace, a liquid slickness that was apparent in his every move. Every jerk of the hands, ever movement of the neck seemed skillfully thought out, like the steps in a long, haunting dance. He was also very young looking, soft and unmoving, which betrayed his entire demeanor. The childhood roundness had yet to decay from Farfarello's face, his lips were still full and swollen, his body still weighed down with baby fat. He didn't look twelve, and that, Crawford decided, could be a problem.   
  
The boy's insanity was on the top of the oracle's mind. Farfarello suffered from childhood schizophrenia, made worse by some unnamed traumatic event the Irish Manipulator was rumored to have suffered through. He was unstable, swinging between the positive and negative symptoms of his disease quickly and without warning. Schuldig had expressed concern about using Farfarello in their plans from the beginning, not because the boy was, as Schuldig said "fucking nuts", but because as a telepath, Schuldig was privy to every shrill whisper and demanding hallucination that trembled through Farfarello's clouded mind.   
  
Medication didn't work on Farfarello, risperdale, seroqual, even clozaril didn't affect him. The voices in his head were real, not in the psychic term, which meant that aside from drugs, there was no away Rosenkreuzt could cure him. They just had to wait out each psychotic spell, pump him full of sedatives, and use him when the more manageable, apathic swings of his condition hit him.   
  
Eight, Crawford counted. He had eight shots of tranquillizers to keep Farfarello under the control. What he had to do after that... he didn't want to think about. Least Schuldig pick it up his plots and blow his top.  
  
For someone who had ranted and raved about using the "fucking nut" in their escape, Schuldig was oddly protective of Farfarello.   
  
Schuldig, now there was a body that screamed out for attention. He was a little tall for his age, gawky. It looked like his bones had undergone a growth spurt that his flesh and muscle had yet to catch up with. At the same time, he was eerily pretty, in a used, soiled way. His eyes, more than his blazon orange hair, stood out like a snapdragon in a field of daisies...  
  
(Nice comparison.) The red head in question looked up from his meal and grinned.   
  
"Stop that." Crawford growled, causing Nagi to raise an eyebrow in question.   
  
Schuldig cheerfully returned to his waffle, "I know you want my body."   
  
Nagi indiscreetly lifted the table cloth to see if anything was going on down there with Crawford and Schuldig that he hadn't previously noticed.   
  
Farfarello took another sip of Schuldig's orange juice and blinked, asking plainly and tactfully, "Are you going to have sex now?"  
  
"Yes." Said Schuldig.  
  
"What??" Said Crawford.  
  
"...when you want someone's body, you have to have sex." The worldly twelve-year-old reasoned. He blinked again in thought. "Unless you want to kill them. That's different. American, you want to kill the telepath?"  
  
"I have a name." Schuldig growled.  
  
"Don't say...telepath...Farfarello." Crawford corrected in a voice that was no longer steady or comfortable.   
  
"Okay." The psychopath replied, pushing his empty plate into the center of the table, against the salt and pepper shaker rack. He sucked the maple syrup from his fork, than grabbed Schuldig's plate and slide it in front of him.   
  
"Hey!"  
  
  
  
====================================================================  
  
  
The trio waited for the American outside the cafe. Crawford insisted on staying inside, claiming he needed to use the restroom. As soon as he left Schuldig informed the other two that he was really just fixing his hair, the silly vain American. Neither Nagi nor Farfarello pointed out the fact that that had been the first thing the snickering telepath had done the minute they entered the building.   
  
"So..." The Asian child opened, tilting his head towards Schuldig in his frightenly placid manner, "...that is the power of a...telepath?" The last word was half whispered.   
  
Farfarello walked out to the street curve and sat himself down, cradling his head.   
  
Schuldig shrugged, (Not really. Suggestion is defined as a Hypnotic ability, which apparently is an entire different power all together. Telepath's can read thoughts and channel psychic communication. By definition.)  
  
Nagi jumped at the invasion.   
  
(...Mmm, Rosenkreuzt is big, you know?) Schuldig shook his head and laughed. (Funny, I think... some of the most powerful telepath's in the world... all they can do is name a shape or number on the back of a card. You've seen those tests, haven't you? Psychic power... it isn't what Rosenkreuzt makes it out to be. People like Crawford, myself, even you, you little brat... our power is almost unthinkable. It's no wonder we were the ones able to escape...)  
  
Crawford stepped through the doors, clearing his throat. Schuldig helped Farfarello to his feet and they started to walk.   
  
A streak of dark crimson hung over Nagi's pale face. (So...) He timidly tried to stretch out his thoughts. Schuldig nodded an affirmative, encouraging the child to continue, and he did, thinking a little more bravely, (those who can float things like me...)  
  
The German almost laughed out loud, (Kid, the top of the telekinetic class can bend a spoon, that's about fucking it. Lifting those guards, ripping out those chip thingies, unbelievable.) He paused, frowning suddenly. Schuldig wagged a finger in front of the child's face, "Don't let that go to your head."  
  
It was true, Crawford thought. Schuldig had hooked him into the conversation at the beginning and he had been silently following. Walking a little ahead of the three, he mused. Nagi's power was indescribable. According to all his studies, ability like that shouldn't even exist. And if they did, in the unlikely situation they did, the user would have destroyed himself a long time ago with the uncontrolled energy.   
  
Every student of Rosenkreuzt had seen the sketches of what happened to the telekinetic who didn't learn to control his power, or didn't use it. The energy pent up and finally blew; head, limbs, and guts flying everywhere. Crawford had always known that the representation was too melodramatic to be completely accurate, but the idea behind it wasn't something to dismiss.   
  
How could the mysterious Naoe Nagi have gone that many years with that power and still be walking beside them?  
  
Why did he have so much control.   
  
(Telepathy.) Nagi suddenly thought. (If you can just read thoughts and talk inside other people's heads, how'd you convince that waitress that you already paid and she didn't need to double check the register?)  
  
They crossed a street into a park, it was still early in the morning. Only a few children and their parents were on the equipment. The others in the park were either joggers or dog walkers. A group of college students, all male, sat on a park bench off in the distance, chatting and reading from some text books.   
  
Crawford kept his eyes trained in their direction as he and the other three stepped across the lawn.   
  
(That woman was bare-ass stupid.) Schuldig tapped his head, (She thinks so infrequently that she wouldn't have recognized me speaking Klingon to her in that empty void. I could just as easily have conned her out of the check verbally than made suggestions.)   
  
A rifle of confusion floated from Nagi's mind.   
  
"Schuldig has an annoying voice, doesn't he, Nagi?" Crawford said softly, they had just reached the play ground.   
  
The youngest psychic backed up, expecting a retort from the redhead.  
  
Instead, Schuldig grinned, "Yeah, I sound like my nasal passage caved in, don't I?" When he spoke he increased the whine in his nose. He laughed at Nagi's uneasy silence. "I'm not setting you up kid."  
  
Farfarello moved to any empty swing and sat down.   
  
(Listen.)  
  
"It's my voice when I talk to you?"  
  
(A little high. Nasal.)  
  
"When you hear..."  
  
(God, I'm hot and horny, I think I should just beat off right here. RIGHT NOW, BABY!)   
  
Nagi's eyes widen.   
  
"...you're not going to do it, because you know its not your own thoughts." Schuldig shrugged, "well if you have half a brain cell and aren't used to schizophrenic suggestions, you will." He joined the Irish boy on the swings.   
  
"Hypnotists can put a mind in a state of suggestion. Even so, their voices remain their own. Technically, a telepath should not be able to make suggestions to a conscience mind and expect them to be followed through. Theoretically... a true telepath is both a mind reader and a hypnotist." Said Crawford.   
  
The book definition of a 'true telepath' was one who could control every aspect of another person's mind: thoughts, decisions, will. As Schuldig had mentioned earlier, most telepath's weren't on or anywhere near that level.   
  
Their German redhead however...  
  
"I believe Schuldig has the ability to get to that point."  
  
"Crawford!" The boy replied, swinging forward, grinning like a madman. "You flatter me."   
  
"I do nothing of the sort. I'm merely making an observation." Came the calm reply.   
  
Nagi, the bore, lowered himself onto the wood chipped floor, folding his legs underneath himself and placed his hands in his lap. He watched the two teenagers on the swings with a cynical frown. "What about him," he asked, indicating Farfarello.   
  
"I'm crazy." Farfarello replied.   
  
"A manipulator." Schuldig said dully.  
  
"My purpose is to bring about the end."  
  
"What is a manipulator?"  
  
"Hey, anyone been worried about the Sweepers lately?"  
  
Crawford shook his head, dismissively. "They wouldn't attack in broad daylight, especially in a crowded area. They have that much tact." He smiled and remained standing, positioned in-between the swings and Nagi. Only Farfarello caught the secret glance Crawford took over Schuldig's shoulder.   
  
A manipulator, Crawford explained, was a person who possessed the ability to convince their body to do things it physically shouldn't have been able to perform. The term "mind over matter" was the best way to describe someone like Farfarello.   
  
"Think of the freaks that walk on glass or hang themselves in the air by their nipples with fish hooks," Schuldig supplied in his characteristically crass example.   
  
Any "normal" person could train themselves to become what Rosenkreuzt called a manipulator, however, most of the time, it was something the person was born with. Farfarello couldn't feel pain, not for any medical reason. Farfarello couldn't feel pain because he convinced himself that he couldn't feel pain.   
  
"No," he argued sullenly, "God took the Pain away from me."   
  
"We called it the Peter Pan Complex in my dorm." Schuldig chuckled. "I think I can, I think I can. If a Manipulator really believes they can do it, they do it."  
  
"But most manipulators...the sane ones anyway, are always afflicted with doubt." The American paced a little, keeping an eye on Farfarello. "A manipulator should have the ability to do anything they convince themselves they can do. Flight for example, which is where I believe the term Peter Pan Complex came from, we used it in our dorms too. But the manipulator has to, at all times, believe they have can really fly, or levitate, or teleport. Having even a shadow of a doubt-"  
  
"Fucks their whole plans." Schuldig interrupted. "Manipulator's suck. Most of them are pussy scared 'cause the instructors kick their ass all the time, because they can't do what they're suppose to."   
  
Students who didn't meet up to psychic standards were punished, often physically.  
  
"Most manipulators, like Farfarello, posses the inability to feel pain. That's the most common side affect of manipulation." Crawford finished the explanation.  
  
Nagi took all the information in, focusing on the way Crawford described their power as a 'side affect.' "...you make it sound like a disease. Psychic powers." He said softly.  
  
The American did something frightening and unexpected.   
  
He grinned.   
  
"It is."   
  
  
==================================================================  
  
  
The leader of the second Sweeper team had to practically hold two of his teammates back.   
  
"C'mon." One of them, a Manipulator, growled. "They're right there! Ready to be plucked. Let's move."  
  
The team was adorn in civilian clothes, gathered around a park bench, trying to look like a study group. They were all young men, college students it may have seemed, nothing about them, save the ear pieces, were suspicious.   
  
"Not in the open," The leader hissed. He snapped his fingers in front of the Manipulator, grabbing his attention. "There are too many people, and none of us have the ability to wipe their minds. Hoztmann said, keep it clean."  
  
"...but...but they killed Lucero." The other whined, pathetically.   
  
"Don't make me take you back home, Janssen." A little more squabbling and eventually the group settled down, forcing themselves to be content with glaring at the four little brats that the Institute prized so much as to order none of them to be harmed.   
  
It was almost unbearable when Schuldig slowly turned his head in their direction and smiled. 


	6. Chapter 6

Charles Leistung was tired of waiting. He knew that they could send a thousand Sweeper teams out there with little more result than the deaths of a few worthless psychics. The group Bradley Crawford had allied himself with was too powerful. Especially his contact. It was that loose telekinetic Rosenkreuzt was dying to get their hands on. He had disappeared from their scanners several weeks ago, they had assumed he was dead.   
  
But no, judging by the handy work bestowed upon the last Sweeper team, the little brat was alive and making dangerous new friends.   
  
This was not acceptable.  
  
It was time someone, someone other than that idiot Hotzmann, took control of the situation...  
  
==========================================================================  
  
  
...oh how low he had sunken. He, Bradley Anthony Crawford a son of a wealthy New England stock broker, top of his class both in the European boarding school he had been attending before he was 'transferred' to Vienna and in his studies in Rosenkreuzt, had been reduced to begging for money.   
  
No, he thought angrily, trying to hold onto some of his dignity. Not begging, borrowing. And it was only a small amount, just enough to buy a newspaper. Asking an adult for the change hadn't been that demeaning, yes, it was almost noble in fact. It showed his humility, he decided. Besides, it was a necessary evil.  
  
They needed to find a place to stay. Golden brown eyes flicked off to the side, and money. Lots of money...  
  
...And a straight jacket. A heavy duty straight jacket.   
  
And maybe some duct tape. For Schuldig. Yes... duct tape.  
  
He buried his nose in the classified, stepping around the corner, expecting to find his fellow escapees right where he left them. They had better have stayed there, he told them he would be right back. It only had been an hour. News paper stands were far and between in the area of the city they were currently situated in. What could have gone wrong in an hour?   
  
Bradley Crawford passed a spiky white head, not giving it a second glance. He flipped the newspaper and found the apartment section. A four bedroom flat would be nice, he'd settle for three, even two, the others could bunk together whatever the situation was, so long as he had the master bedroom to himself.   
  
Caught up in his thoughts, Crawford missed the meeting spot. He sighed and folded the paper, back tracking. He walked by the spiky white, almost silver, head again. This time it registered.   
  
Crawford's lips parted. "Farfarello..."  
  
A single amber eye blinked up at him innocently.  
  
"...what the hell happened to your hair?"  
  
"Bad dye job." Came the calm reply. Farfarello had his hands on the Sweeper's bowie knife and was carving an image into the bench he had been told not to move from.   
  
Schuldig crossed the street and shrugged, shoulders sagging a little bit in defeat. "It was suppose to be blonde. I guess red doesn't need as much bleach as black."  
  
Crawford actually appeared startled. He leaned towards Schuldig and half whispered. "...you're aware your hair is now green?"  
  
The now emerald haired Schuldig looked as if he might cry. "It's not totally green! It's white with...green highlights! There's a fucking difference." He crossed his arms and pouted, "I thought, y'know, Farfie's hair is red like mine, right? So, I'd test the dye on his first. See how it turned out. Well, his hair is a darker shade than mine, and when it turned out white, I thought, well hell, since I'm lighter, mine will go platinum but..."  
  
"Instead it went..." Crawford finished flatly.  
  
Schuldig nodded. "Green."   
  
Crawford gave him a look.  
  
"You were the one who thought we stuck out! I was trying to make us look more normal." The fourteen-year-old complained. His voice lost its defensive edge and melted into something more whimsical and childish. "Besides, I thought blonde would be uber-sexy. It makes freckles less noticeable, you know."  
  
"Don't say uber ever again." Something struck him. "...where did you get the dye?" He was met with a blank stare. Slowly his companion motioned towards the walk-in salon behind him. Crawford raised a second eyebrow, speaking slowly, as one would to a child. A very thick child. "...and you paid for this how...?"  
  
Schuldig dug a wallet out of his pocket. He opened the bill and proudly revealed what was left of his stash. Crawford took note of the driver license inside. Catching his thoughts, Schuldig hastily removed the photo ID of Mr. Hans Schneider and tossed it over his shoulder.   
  
Crawford gave him another look.  
  
"...Nagi lifted it." Schuldig said quickly.  
  
The child in question stepped across the street, thumbing through another wallet. He glanced up at Crawford and for a second looked almost guilty. Clearing his throat, and hiding the leather purse behind his back, he murmured in his dead calm tenor. "I thought he would use it for something important."  
  
"Hair is important." The...green head... interjected.  
  
"Schuldig said you instructed us to do it. Telepathically."  
  
"...oh, did he?"  
  
"Hey, don't look at me. It's not my fault he's gullible."  
  
"You're not suppose to say telepathic." The now silver haired Farfarello quietly pointed out.   
  
Crawford felt a headache coming on.   
  
========================================================================  
  
The twenty-one year old was waiting in his office when he returned from lunch.   
  
Sazha still lived in Vienna, waiting to be assigned a team and a mission. Rosenkreuzt had been reluctant to let the psychic go, for danger of him being injured. They had yet to receive a client who would need a Talent of his degree, a job of his prestige, a payer willing to pay the price offered for his services. With expectations like that, it was easy to understand why the red eyed young man was surprised and slightly offended to be called in to capture three renegade psychics.   
  
It was always said that Sazha was too thin for his height. He had a slim, almost feminine body. Maybe it was his hair, a thick pool of liquid ebony that flowed down his back, neatly tied at the very end. Sazha's features could best be described as elven, dark and mythical. His demonic eyes were calculating and evil. Someday he would be one of the head Councilmen.  
  
And he knew it.  
  
"Schuldig." The German Mind Eraser opened, not allowing Leistung to talk. That's how important he was to Este. "He was suppose to be part of my team, once he matured?"  
  
Sazha had led a few temporary groups before, nothing permanent, mostly because he had the bad habit of allowing his charges to be killed during missions. He had never worked with the German telepath before, he hadn't wanted to. Telepath's were cattle to Mind Erasers. They fed on them.   
  
But this boy... he was suppose to be very special.   
  
Leistung nodded. "Yes."  
  
A packet of folders had been laid out on the old man's leisure couch. He knew Sazha would show up sooner than he was suppose to and would be curious to see who he would privilege with his hunt.   
  
Now he stood, studying the pictures and instructor notes on each boy. Farfarello's profile had been tossed back onto the cushions, Sazha had no interest in a Manipulator. But this one...  
  
"Bradley Crawford..." He purred, trying the name out on his tongue. "Who is he?"  
  
"Someone who has more ability and cunning than we originally suspected." Leistung answered stiffly.   
  
Sazha ran a hand along the photograph of a thirteen-year-old Crawford, it was the shot they had taken the day he arrived at the academy.   
  
Leistung shivered.  
  
Sazha was rumored to have been caught in the dorms with a few of the younger boys...  
  
"I won't kill them of course. Or break them." He promised. The folders lowered in his hands and he smiled at the old man. Leistung gripped his wolf head cane even tighter, knuckles white. "They already destroyed a Sweeper team? Hoztmann's babies, worthless soldiers, only good for capturing frightened children."  
  
"They serve their primary purpose." Leistung said. "It's not every day a group of students escape the gates."  
  
A feline smile pulled tighter across Sazha's thin lips. "They think they've crawled out of hell, when they've only entered the inferno. My inferno. Leistung, tell Hotzmann to call back his troops. We don't want to waste resources collecting bodies, do we?"  
  
Pushing down his sudden rage at being ordered around by... by another child... Leistung growled. "So, you will return them for me?"  
  
"In time," Sazha said. "in time."  
  
Let them enjoy their freedom, he thought. It will make their imprisonment all the more damaging.   
  
========================================================================  
  
  
Not much disturbed Naoe Nagi. He had become desensitized to violence, gore, sorrow, darkness, and people. He had become immune to the supernatural, psychics and psychopaths. He was even developing a tolerance for Schuldig, who was an entire category of horror all together.   
  
Naoe Nagi was pretty much fearless.  
  
However, seeing the indestructible, unshakable Bradley Crawford suddenly drop forward and go limp, whimpering, just plain irked him.   
  
"Hey. Hey." The little boy whispered, leaning on top of the sunken American and shaking him. Crawford was so much bigger than he was, it was hard to move him, unless he used his powers. "Hey." Nagi cried, half yelping as Crawford twitched, moaning. "H-hey."  
  
The two were alone at a table, they hadn't ordered anything to eat yet, they had seated themselves. It was an outside bar and grill, fenced off with a low hanging oak deck, over-looking a merchant littered square in the center of the city.   
  
Schuldig had dragged Farfarello off a while ago, claiming Crawford's newspaper search too dull for his refined tastes. They had floated into the crowd, easily disappearing. Schuldig had been right, they stood out less with their new looks. Their heads didn't shine like beacons at least.  
  
"Hey..."  
  
Crawford came back to himself, body regaining its tension. Mumbling something in English, which the Japanese boy didn't understand, he moved back into his seat. A dazed expression washed over his usually stern face and he tried to signal towards a waitress for water.   
  
The woman, brighter than the one they encountered at the breakfast cafe, gave him a dubious look and asked where their parents were.   
  
"Never mind." The American all but growled. The waitress shot them another suspicious glance and walked off, intent on ignoring them.   
  
Nagi leaned against the head of his chair, trying to figure out what happened. He asked, trying not to sound concerned. Crawford had really scared him.   
  
"Vision." Was the muddled explanation, Crawford pinched his nose, collecting his bearings. "A long one."  
  
So that was what it was like to be an oracle.   
  
"Is it painful?"  
  
"Very." He sighed and shook his head. The color was beginning to return to his cheeks. Crawford didn't bother to mention that he handled the flashes better than most other oracles. He hadn't always. When he first came to Rosenkreuzt he had been just like everyone else, thrown to his side, foaming, sometimes screaming in a seizure as the vision played out. "But at least I know that we won't have to worry about the Sweeper team tonight."  
  
The last sentence was spoke low enough not to be detected by the 'college' age boys who miserably sat a few tables away.   
  
=========================================================================  
  
  
Dusk was coming and Schuldig was once again hungry. He didn't know how many dumb bimbos served dinner in this town, and frankly, he didn't want to risk it. Currently he was on a hunt, for 'honest money' as Crawford said. He had an idea in mind, but if that didn't work out, he could always turn to petty prostitution. He heard male whoring was good money in Vienna.   
  
Schuldig also kept Farfarello busy, distracting him from the voices in his head.   
  
He had learned a lot about the young psychopath in a matter of hours.   
  
One, he found out, Farfarello could be dragged away from his delusions if he was verbally comforted. To know that what was being spoken to him was real, Schuldig had to place himself in front of Farfarello and speak slowly, so that the movements of his mouth connected with the sounds pouring into Farfarello's ear. Touching also helped, a overextended, slow touch on the arm, with Farfarello watching the movement the entire time, so that he couldn't confuse it for a hallucination. Schuldig was trying hard to convince Farfarello's mind to relate any image of himself, Crawford, or Nagi with reality instead of one of his day dreams.  
  
And he was doing fine.  
  
He really had an interesting mind. The squall of thoughts wasn't as annoying as he first thought. Not at all.  
  
However, Schuldig noted, flicking a glance over his shoulder. Those three Sweepers, all of them useless Manipulators, were beginning to get on his nerves.   
  
==========================================================================  
  
  
The Sweeper leader nearly jumped out of his chair when his cell rang. He hastily yanked it out of his jacket and held it up to his ear. "Yeah?"  
  
In front of him, the oracle turned slightly, head tilted.   
  
It was Hotzmann and he sounded angry. "Come home."  
  
"...home?" The leader echoed, a little too loudly. The child lifted his head, looking over the oracles shoulder at them. "Sir?"  
  
"Home."   
  
The line went dead.   
  
===========================================================================  
  
  
How was this for honest money?  
  
"Ladies and Gentlemen!" The former red head chanted, voice high and echoing in the microphone. A few of the night walkers paused to stare at the child, expecting nonsense. "This is an American song: Introducing the Chocolate Starfish!"  
  
Farfarello cradled the other microphone with his hands, eye closed.   
  
"And the Hot Dog Flavored Water!" A small crowd formed around the two boys. "Don't laugh, this is the only song I know. Listen up!"  
  
"...you let me violate you..." The Irish boy began to sing lowly.   
  
God bless the karaoke machine and Vienna's boheme-hippies.   
  
Schuldig unhooked his 'phone from the stand and began to pace around, mouth piece pressed tight against his lip. His high nasal voice added to the sound. "It's a fucked up world, we're a fucked up race..."  
  
The song wasn't accurate word per word, but the audience didn't know that.   
  
Besides, they were tranced by Schuldig's presence, or more correctly, his psychic appeal. Money, he whispered as subliminal as possible into their minds. With his voice screaming out verbally at the same time, it was harder for them to catch the difference in their thoughts.   
  
"Everybody's judged by their fucked up face."  
  
"You let me desecrate you." Farfarello continued to whisper in the background. "You let me penetrate you."  
  
"Fucked up dreams, fucked up life," Schuldig gestured with his free hand, "A fucked up kid with a fucked up knife."  
  
Oh. Puny.  
  
The only word most of the listeners understood from the English lyrics was the f-curse, and that was absolutely fascinating.   
  
"Fucked up moms, fucked up dads..."  
  
"You let me complicate you."  
  
"A fucked up cop, with a fucked up badge. Fucked up job, with fucked up pay. Fucked up boss, it's a fucked up day."  
  
Even at his age, Schuldig had the nature and front to pull off what he was screaming. His green eyes were wild as he moved back and forth, reciting a song he loved solely for the repeated use of the one word...  
  
"Help me..." Farfarello had a terrifying angelic voice, like a choir boy. "I broke apart my insides... Help me...I've got no soul to sell."  
  
"Fucked up press, and fucked up lies."   
  
Schuldig moved into the crowd as the karaoke machine blasted into the chorus for his song. He moved from person to person, or more specifically, from cloaked Sweeper to cloaked Sweeper. Now he was intentionally altering the lyrics.   
  
The backup to the first machine whispered: hey, it's on.  
  
"Everybody knows it's on."  
  
He jabbed a Sweeper, a telepath a grade ahead of him, in the chest.   
  
"Everybody knows it's on."  
  
Farfarello bared his teeth, "I wanna fuck you like an animal..."  
  
Schuldig returned to the front, roaring, "You wanna fuck me like an animal?"  
  
"I want to feel you on the inside."  
  
"You'd like to burn me on the inside."  
  
"I wanna fuck you like an animal..."  
  
"You wanna think that I'm the perfect drug."  
  
"You get me closer to God."  
  
Schuldig pointed into the crowd, which had become large by now. "Just know that nothing you do," he challenged, "will get you closer to me."  
  
Among the masses, Sazha watched, enthralled.   
  
"You can have my isolation, you can have the hate that it brings." Farfarello offered, voice taking on a tone of hysteria. He was getting into the music. He loved the band.   
  
The other boy made a flippant gesture, "Ain't it a shame that you can't say fuck? Fuck's just a word and it's all fucked up. Like a fucked up punk with a fucked up mouth."  
  
"You can have my absence of faith, you can have my everything. Help me... tear down my reason."   
  
"Nine Inch Nails can get knocked the fucked out. Fucked up babes."  
  
"Help me... its' your sex I can smell."   
  
"Fucked up sex." Schuldig made his hands into claws and turned them inwards against his rib cage, bouncing them up and down. "Fake ass titties on fucked up chests."  
  
The money that was coming in suddenly increased, two patrons who understood English hooted. The women who understood shook their heads, pulled their male companions away, and walked off. A few just grinned.   
  
"Help me... you make me perfect. Help me... become somebody else."   
  
"We're all fucked up," Schuldig announced, then grinned at the Sweepers. "So what'cha gonna do? Fucked up me. And fucked up you!"  
  
The boy has no inhibitions, Sazha noted.  
  
"I wanna fuck you like an animal. I want to feel you on the inside. You get me closer to God."  
  
"YOU WANNA FUCK ME LIKE AN ANIMAL? You wanna burn me on the inside? Just know that nothing you do will get you closer to me. Ain't life a bitch? A fucked up bitch."  
  
Farfarello hissed, "Help me... I've got no soul to sell."  
  
"A fucked up soul with a fucked up stitch. It's a real fucked up crime. If I say fuck two more times," Schuldig held out his fingers, then quickly switched them to fit the next numbers. He was fast. "That's 36 fucks in this fucked up rhythm."   
  
Farfarello returned to the refrain, completely lost in his own little world.  
  
Schuldig was drunk on adrenaline, no longer singing for the money or the attention, but to Rosenkreuzt and its dogs. "Listen up baby." He growled, "You...can't...bring...me down... I...don't...think...so."  
  
The British and American Sweepers glowered.  
  
Schuldig bit off every word as if it was its own independent sentence. The new venom was enchanting. "You better check yourself, before you wreck yourself. Kiss my Starfish, my chocolate starfish."  
  
"Through every forest, above the trees..." Farfarello's melody was nothing but background noise now. "through every forest, above the trees...   
  
Sazha laughed and walked away.   
  
"You are the reason I stay alive."  
  
"Just know that nothing you do will get you closer to me."  
  
The music stopped.   
  
  
====================================================================  
  
  
  
  
Author Notes -   
  
That song addition was... tacky to say the least. It just seemed like  
something Schuldig would do. If you listen to both songs side-by-side,  
they have similar music cues.   
  
"Hot Dog" by Limp Biskit, Chocolate Starfish &   
The Hotdog Flavored Water.  
  
"Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral. 


	7. Chapter 7

Living arrangements.  
  
It appeared Crawford had overlooked living arrangements.   
  
"I'm not spending another night in that sewer." Schuldig warned in no uncertain terms. The telepath and manipulator had returned from their outing with enough money to wave in the waitress face to get with another meal. Crawford had stared at the bills with a dull somber look, aware of where it came from. He could hear that annoying nasal scream from blocks away, and wondered why people paid money for it.  
  
"Sewers are bad." Farfarello intelligently agreed. He sat close to Schuldig, arms folded on the table, hunched a little. His single amber gaze was locked on Crawford, daring him to say anything against the German's protest.  
  
"Why." Crawford demanded.   
  
Farfarello batted an eye. "...because."  
  
Smirking, Schuldig wrapped an arm around the shoulder of his supporter, speaking in a taunting tone. "Because Schu-Schu said so."   
  
"Yes."  
  
Crawford buried any nasty comments he had in his glass of ice tea.   
  
"Craaawford," Schuldig whined, "build me a house."  
  
Crawford swallowed an ice cube.   
  
"Oh, fine, be that way. American prick." The emerald haired boy stuck his elbow down on the table and turned his attention to Farfarello, who had just discovered the table knife wrapped in his napkin and was studying it with intense curiosity.   
  
The child, Nagi, suddenly mumbled something softly out of the corner of his mouth. "...we should just go down to the Projects, find an apartment owned by a bachelor or old lady, slaughter them, then live off of there until the manager comes looking for rent..."   
  
The two oldest psychics stared, mouths parted.   
  
The little boy stared back with dead hollow eyes.   
  
"That..." Crawford spoke after awhile, "isn't such a bad idea."  
  
Nagi frowned, "Crawford, you said we would be going to America after you escaped."  
  
Schuldig snorted and began to say something, but was cut off by the oracle. "In time, Nagi."   
  
Across the table, the Irish boy began to chop into the woodwork with his dull blade. Intent on his work, he didn't look up as he stoically recounted a bit of information about himself before his capture. "I did that." He said. "In Kildare. In a house with a mother and father and a sister and another sister. But they found me."   
  
"Who? The men in white jackets?" Schuldig teased.  
  
Farfarello jerked as he looked up at him, the German froze. "Yes."  
  
The attention returned to the fifteen-year-old American as their fearless leader took a sudden sharp intake of breath, then smirked. He picked his napkin out of his lap and sat up, nodding for the waitress to bring him their check. The other three sat in silent question.   
  
"It's getting dark," Crawford explained, "and I know where we can stay."  
  
========================================================================  
  
  
Leistung fumed in silence. He was beginning to regret ever bringing that brat, Sazha, into the situation.   
  
But he was right. Damn him, he was right.  
  
Short of sending the Council of Elders out themselves, with their canes, wrinkles, and dignity, Sazha was the only psychic in the area they could turn to for help. There were other psychics. Equally powerfully psychics with off-handed powers that most people had never even heard of. But none of them had the mind, the cunning, to devise a plan of capture the way Sazha did. The man was a master of manipulation and a sadist to boot. He could counter Crawford's genius, Schuldig and the telekinesis's raw power, Farfarello's strength.   
  
He could win them back.   
  
And they would come back. Yes. And when they did... When their reprogrammers were through with them, they would be docile and loyal to Este to a fault. Oh yes. They would bow. They would...  
  
"Being as there are four of them, I believe there should be four of us." Sazha told him. He was speaking to Leistung about the team he wanted. And he wanted them soon. Not now. Soon.   
  
Something was in Sazha's head, some devilish plan that didn't require for immediate re-capture of Crawford and his minions. At first the others on the council - Hoztmann, Krauler, and Collins - bawked at the young man's proposal. Now, they listened in sullen silence.   
  
"Name your team," Krauler finally replied, weak in defeat. "We'll give you anyone."  
  
  
  
  
==========================================================================  
  
  
"Gentlemen," the American introduced in his uncanny, sophisticated fashion, "welcome to our new urban grotto."   
  
It might have been a quaint, almost homely scene, if at that very moment, the wall dividing the blackened kitchen from the barren living room didn't cave in.   
  
Schuldig visually twitched. "*This* is what you saw in your vision?" He yelled. His voice hit a pubic screech and dissolved into a high pitch scream. "What Gods of SHIT LUCK IRONY are sending you these images???"  
  
Aware of where this conversation would lead, Nagi took off into the misty darkness to explore the depths of their new humble abode. His only comment was made before introduction, when he cast Crawford a wary glance, and in his zombie-calm voice, asked exactly what "Condemned" meant. The only sign of the child's existence after that was the slight scream he gave off when his foot plunged through the woodwork of the master bedroom.  
  
"It's a fixer-upper." Crawford observed.  
  
"Oh yea, I can see it now. A stick of dynamite here, a fuse there, one small explosion, a month or two to clear the debris, re-level the floor ground, and fucking build from the dirt up and it'll be a real Martha Steward Christmas card HOLIDAY FUCKING RETREAT."   
  
"Your sarcasm has been noted and ignored." The oldest psychic walked off to explore the kitchen and see what could be done about the house's power. They were in the heart of Vienna, the abandoned projects that were littered with crack addicts, curb whores, and street walkers. The police saw little action there, as they did in most ghettos. Aside from the Sweepers of Rosenkreuzt, the children's only real concern would be avoiding the neighborhood pedophile and any other squatter that might eventually show up, miffed that they had taken over his house.   
  
A nasal voice rang from the bathroom. "Something's floating in the toilet! And I think it's still alive!"  
  
A few cracked pots and plates laid in a half filled sink. Crawford brushed his fingers against the facet knobs, then hesitantly turned them around. A low rumble came from underneath him, followed by a geyser of brown goo. The liquid flow spurted once, drenching Crawford's school uniform, spat weakly two more times, then died down.   
  
Nagi returned from his exploration. A small frown pinched the telekinetic round features, his head was craned upwards, staring at the ceiling. "I believe," he reported, pointing towards a caved in spot on the floor, "a stairway used to be here."  
  
Farfarello approached the gap in the wall that was suppose to lead to the disaster's second story. He stretched his arms upwards, then jumped, trying to reach the break in the ceiling and hoist himself up. The Irish boy fell short a couple of feet and landed back on the floor with an expression of defeat. "No access."  
  
"We could get a ladder."  
  
"...yes."  
  
Another comment from the bathroom: "It has teeth!"  
  
Nagi regarded their leader. "Crawford, how do we know someone doesn't already live here?"  
  
"How do we know the roof isn't going to crush us in the middle of the night?" Asked Schuldig, coming back in from the hall.  
  
"I just know." Crawford was back in the living room, shuffling through the items he had swiped off the first Sweeper team they had encountered. He had the tranquilizer gun in hand and was preparing to sedate Farfarello for the night.   
  
Farfarello caught glimpse of the shot and edged backwards. "No."  
  
"You just know." Schuldig placed a hand on his hip, rolled his head back, and sneered, "You know everything, Oracle. This house is too perfect to be just something that suddenly came to you; and why would it come to you anyway? Everything I've read about your kind says that the visions you have are sporadic and unpredictable. They only extend seconds, minutes in the future, and are often unrelated to anything that can be considered helpful. Yet you seem to be dancing around everything like it's been fucking scripted. You know too much."  
  
Nagi's eyes narrowed in suspicion.  
  
"The master mind finally applies some thought into the things he says. I'm dually impressed." Crawford mocked dryly. He pulled a barrier up just in time to evade Schuldig's mental invasion. Dark brown eyes turned to the inching schizophrenic. "Obey me, Farfarello."  
  
"No."  
  
"Don't block your mind from me, Bradley. What aren't you telling us?"  
  
"...Farfarello..."  
  
"...No!"   
  
As the American approached, the Irish boy grabbed his head and dropped to the floor, face tucked under his belly in fear. He began to shake violently. Nagi watched with spread lips, Farfarello's submission to Crawford was fascinating.   
  
"Oh, for God sakes, leave him alone. He's not doing anything." Schuldig defended and took a step in front of Farfarello, placing his body between him and the oracle.   
  
Crawford eased his advance, for all the world appearing as if he was going to back down. Schuldig's hopes flared in triumph, then died down just as quickly as a slight smirk graced the face of the asshole. The German tilted his head in confusion, what was Crawford...  
  
"NO MORE DRUGS." Twelve-year-old Farfarello sprung onto Schuldig. In his moment of fear, a hallucination hit him heavy and hard, now he was operating completely on fight-or-flight reactions.   
  
Schuldig chin smashed into the floor at the same time Crawford flew down and buried the ready needle into Farfarello's neck. The younger psychic struggled for a bit, then went limp.   
  
Schuldig gapped.  
  
Crawford stood over him, body a shadow in the poor lighting. His voice, a warning, held a dangerous low edge that Schuldig had never heard before. "From now on, assume that I do know everything, Schuldig, and never disobey me."   
  
==========================================================================  
  
The first of three psychics being collected for Sazha's team was Nigel Lancaster.   
  
Nigel was a Projector, a very powerful one. Nigel was in the Talent division of Rosenkreuzt. The Talent division trained the physical powers within the academy, the pyro and aquakentics, the teleporters. Nigel was one of three Talents who could split his body into multiple copies and manipulate them to do various tasks at his command.   
  
Projectors were rare and eventually split themselves down to death. At fourteen, Nigel was holding up pretty well. Though he, like the other two in his class, were constantly in trouble for sending poorly created clones to class and to the training room to do the dirty work while the original dozed in bed. Without constant control of the original, the copies were dull and stupid, they eventually faded into non-existence, turning into static like an image on a television screen and blinking out all together.  
  
The best trait of a Project was their ability to multiple and gang up on a target. They could also escape a battle and death by blurring a copy into the action and sneaking the original off to a safe location. Any damage inflicted upon the copy appeared on the original in the form of a scar, welt, or bruise, that faded hours after they were struck.  
  
When Sazha approached Nigel, the British boy was kicking it back in the dormitories waiting for his left eye to unscar. A meeting with a vicious Manipulator had the whole eyeball white and foamed over, which wasn't bad for the original, considering the fact that the copy had suffered worse; flickering from existence screaming and clamping a hand over the hole where his left eye used to be. Nigel felt no pain or sorrow over the injury, he was just half blind and a little annoyed.  
  
"If they send you 'ere to take me back to class, tell 'em I'm not ready yet, and they can piss off if they disagree." Nigel's third class accent fitted well with his first class mannerism and pissy exterior. The dark skinned boy laid on his bed, magazine in lap. He flipped through it leisurely, not bothering to grace Sazha with a glance.   
  
The Mind Eraser leaned against the doorway and grinned. "Shall I quote you on that? Or would you like to continue enjoying your eating privileges for the next few days?"  
  
"I said 'piss off' that means bloody leave, you nazi sob." Nigel dismissed in his careless sing-song sigh of a voice.   
  
"I'm Sazha." The Nazi Sob informed.  
  
Nigel stiffened and looked up, at the same time, a thin black circle sketched into his blank left eye, outlining the beginning of an iris. The porcelain boy stared at Sazha for a moment, then slowly, forced himself to relax. He hide his discomfort with a flippant snort of disgust, "So, you're the pedophile everyone used to talk about. I knew you sounded like a bloody pervert when you first came in 'ere."   
  
He closed his magazine and set it aside.  
  
"So, whot d'you want? I can give you a copy to rape, but my original is purely off limits, asshole. Also, I'm going to have to charge."  
  
Sazha was correct to choose this one out of the two other Projectors. He had spirit.   
  
"Name your price, and I'll give you more than you ever asked for."  
  
  
===========================================================================  
  
The floor was cold and left an ache in his hips and back. Schuldig lay on top of Farfarello in the living room. He tried to use the oblivious Manipulator as a cushion, but even Farfarello was hard and uncomfortable. No matter how he laid himself, a bone was sticking up from underfed flesh and jabbing him in the side.   
  
Schuldig was miserable.  
  
And it was all Crawford's fault.   
  
The psychic was contemplating his misery when a creak from afar grabbed his attention. Schuldig sprang up and peered into the darkness. He couldn't discern whether the sound was human, or if the house was making its last groan of pain and was about to collapse and kill them all.   
  
Another creak.   
  
Then he saw him. Crawford. He crept across the floorboards in an attempt to be silent. The light cast from the window highlighted his face for a second, then returned to shadows. Crawford pushed open the door and slipped into the night.  
  
Schuldig followed him. 


	8. Chapter 8

Was it all just a game?  
  
Nagi listened to Crawford come and go. He closed his eyes and played dead while Schuldig drug himself off the floor and followed. The door creaked and shut softly. The knob was broken off, so it couldn't close all the way, and thus didn't make a sound when it was handled. Now he was alone, alone with Farfarello.  
  
The child rolled over to stare, blue eyes wide, at the unmoving form of the Irish psychopath. The dusty wooden floor pressed painfully into his hips and ribs, but Nagi didn't mind. He had slept in places worse than this.   
  
Farfarello's chest rose up, down. Up. Down.   
  
When Crawford first contacted him, his mind altered between thinking: this is it, and, I am completely insane. But mostly, this is it.   
  
He should have known better than to trust some American who claimed he could see the future. Some beaten child who was so terrified of his surroundings that he would risk it all to escape. If all Crawford intended to do was lay low in the ghetto like any other squatter, than he was a fool. At least in Rosenkreuzt he had a bed, a meal, a future.   
  
Was Rosenkreuzt a future? Was Rosenkreuzt the future?  
  
Nagi shook his head and turned his back from Farfarello's accursed breathing. Maybe he was the fool. America. Crawford. What a joke. The older boy had given him the impression that everything was planned out. And it seemed like it, from the moment Nagi stepped from the shadows and crushed the circle of Sweepers. He, Crawford, and the other one, the annoying telepath, would get on a plane and hide in America.   
  
Rosenkreuzt would stay in Europe and never find them.  
  
Crawford would have family in America, or maybe, friends. Nagi would even have settled for a foster family, an orphanage. Anything. Anything besides the streets and sewers he had been fearfully hiding in ever since the Parliament incident, not wanting to be taken by those men in black armor.   
  
How pathetic the Sweepers seemed now, against the might of Crawford, Schuldig, and Farfarello. Even Nagi, less afraid to use his 'powers', thought less and less of them. Mere bugs to swipe and bat from his face and hand as he chose.   
  
Insects.  
  
Just like everyone else.  
  
Nagi pulled the sleeve of his coat and sweatshirt back to scratch at his wrist. Something was wrong. His fingers tingled, he hadn't expelled any energy today and it hurt. He shouldn't have that much ki after last nights attack. It was coming back too fast. If he wasn't careful, a telekinetic wave might flare out and level the entire shack.   
  
The little boy trembled and picked himself up, looking for something to float. The room, save Farfarello, was empty. Nagi stared at the other boy for a moment, wondering. No. His hands, they tingled too much. He might loose control and just rip Farfarello in half.   
  
He had to...  
  
He had to get out of there.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
Everything in this world is connected by thin strands of red thread. Silk, microscopic, breakable. The threads twisted and turned, stretched and slacked as time progressed. Just the smallest thing could change the whole direction the thread was pulling. One event, one moment, one breath, one word, one action could tangle the thread, wind it around others, or slice it in half all together.  
  
Being able to see this thread, being able to take it in your finger tips and manipulate it like strings on a marionette...  
  
This was the power of the true oracle.  
  
It was in Rosenkreuzt that Bradley Crawford began to see this thread.   
  
Everything around him was a clouded matrix of scarlet lines. His visions weakened, became less intense, less painful. The instructors thought his powers were ebbing, that he would never reach any worth while potential. They doubted his abilities. His usefulness.   
  
That's how he tricked them.  
  
While the other pre-cogs were seeing only distorted images of the future, clouded and incomplete, Crawford was seeing the path, the line, that lead to this future or that future. He was very powerful. Very powerful. And yet, as much as he tried, reaching forth, quivering for the crimson webs, he couldn't grasp them.   
  
All he could do was watch, follow, and dodge.   
  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
Schuldig couldn't figure Crawford out. He really couldn't.  
  
Damn stuck up pre-cogs with their damn stuck up mental barriers.   
  
If Crawford were any weaker of a psychic, Schuldig could have shattered his mind by now. 'But noooo, I had to get stuck with the one jackass that's a complete blank to me, and probably a... I don't know, spy or something.'  
  
The emerald haired German shoved his fists into his pockets and slunk after Crawford. He wasn't very stealthy. Schuldig kicked dejectedly at passing pebbles, he scraped his legs against the pavement, he sighed in large breaths watching the air in front of his mist into a mushroom cloud and dissolve. He sulked.   
  
'Hey! What if that damn fuck-ass is really an agent for another psychic organization.' Schuldig's over-active imagination suddenly light bulb-ed. He frowned. 'And he's been leading us to them all along. Hey! What if Nagi's also a part of this organization, what if he's a spy too? Holy fuck, I've been bamboozled by a uber-American and a the mini-Carrie!'  
  
Schuldig was very tired.   
  
And paranoid.   
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
  
"Why are you so powerful?"  
  
The voice, so quiet and deadly calm, was a great contrast to the clawed hand that flew out from the darkness and wrapped around his throat.   
  
With his power discharge, Nagi was helpless to the vice. The child gurgled a choking sound then sank to his knees. His blue eyes were round with disbelief. He was taken so suddenly to the floor that he didn't have time to wonder if he was going to die.   
  
Or fear Farfarello.  
  
The Irish demon stared down at him in the shadows, one golden eye gleaming. A light cast from the musky living room window, from a street lamp outside or maybe even a still working porch light, and struck a silver gleam across the silver boy's fang-like teeth.   
  
He looked like a vampire.   
  
A very hungry vampire.   
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
A snide, nasal hiss cut his concentration, "What do you see, Oracle?"  
  
Crawford lowered his hands and turned to regard the younger psychic. Schuldig stood a safe distance away, uniform flapping in the wind, silken smirk apparent on his face even from the distance, even in the dark. Crawford returned the crooked grin, he didn't stand up or turn to face his partner. Schuldig wasn't worth the courtesy.  
  
And he knew it.  
  
"Bradley," the German purred, daring a step forward. "what are you thinking? What do you see? Victory or betrayal? Our untimely destruction?"   
  
"It won't be untimely," Crawford replied in the amused tone of someone who knew to much and was being driven insane by it, "but yes, I have seen it."  
  
He sat on a power generator, the kind stationed outside a large factory or school building that fed lines down through the basement. Ironic that Crawford would be throned upon that, as if he needed the ugly green box of metal to feed him the energy he needed to 'see'. Crawford had traveled a long way to be alone, forever weaving the thin lines of action and reaction. He was in the heart of the ghetto. On the edge of darkness.  
  
Schuldig placed his hands on the generator lid and sneered up at the brunette, "How sad it must be to be you. Always knowing the future, never one for surprises. But I guess the pay off's good." He piveted and leaned his back against the cold metal, "You get to manipulate the strings of people's lives as if it were nothing. How honey sweet."  
  
"You have no idea..."   
  
Schuldig regarded him, trying to decode the meaning in that placid tone. Did Crawford's powers thrill him or did they destroy him? Perhaps he was like Schuldig, perhaps they did a little of both.  
  
Cold fingers brushed without warning over Schuldig's cheek. The fourteen-year-old hissed and jumped away, growling at the other's mocking chuckle.   
  
Crawford hushed him before he could protest. "In less than a week the medication Rosenkreuzt has fed you will fade to nothing. Your 'voices' which have been kept at bay until now will overrun your mind."  
  
A shadow darkened Schuldig's jade eyes, then passed away. The voices... Overrunning... He remembered what the voices were like before Rosenkreutz rescued... captured? him. Screaming, shattering...  
  
The youth bucked his head, shoulder length hair tossing from one shoulder to the next, in dismissal. He aimed his Cheshire cat grin towards Crawford like a loaded gun. "What else do you see, Oracle?"  
  
Crawford was undaunted. His lips parted to answer, but he was interrupted.   
  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
Valentine and Talbot knew Sazha intimately. In a way neither thirteen-year-old boy would like to talk about or admit to their instructors, their parents, or a court of law.   
  
Sazha had lived in their wing of the dorm the year they both arrived on the packing wagon. It was their first year and Sazha's last in training. The fairy-man already had a reputation of being... indecent to the other younger boys (he never bothered the girls) and was feared by all, mostly because he was a favorite of the councilmen who could do no wrong in their eyes.  
  
Only the Empath's knew - and Sazha left them alone - how everyone secretly loathed the pervert, even council members hated him. But the Empaths feared their own virginity too much to speak up. That's just how Rosenkreuzt was.  
  
Valentine D'arther had recently mastered German and wasn't planning on extending his studies to English, French, or Japanese. His grasp on the school's official language was still limited. He was prone to launching into random fits of Italian and being punished for it. He was tall for his age, graceful in a mystical sense, and charming in a gothic way.  
  
Valentine was a Stream-Slipper, another Talent like Nigel, he could move at bullet speeds, leap incredible heights, and react to everything around him on a super human level. The ultimate goal of a Stream Slipper was to be able to cut through time and space, to teleport. Valentine had yet to master that, he wasn't even close. But he was a worthy fighter and on the good side of all of his instructors.  
  
His only flaw was his passion for vampire novels, more specifically Anne Rice. Valentine had been over the text one too many times, sucked in the concept of vampire's inhuman abilities (speed and such) and declared himself to be one of their kind. The announcement amused, irked, or annoyed the other students, depending on their personality and tolerance levels.   
  
Valentine never crossed the line, he never did anything that might be called 'creepy.' He had somehow managed to convince the facilities doctor to give him fang implants and, when he was in one of his better, more giddy moods, talked with a 'Transylvanian accent' - which was impressive, when you remember that he had to translate the speech patterns from what he heard in old American films into German - a language he was already heavily accented in.   
  
Valentine had cranberry red hair that was spiked and swept back. His skin was alabaster, probably because he wore make-up, and, his eyes were red. When he slipped from place to place at blinding speeds his irises left a crimson trail of light where his body last had been.   
  
Talbot Cézanne was Valentine's short, slightly insane boyfriend. He was an Absorber, and what the other boys described as 'twitchy.' He was also considered more Talent than Psychic, mainly because his power depended wholly on a short gapped slit that ran across his palm. The slit had teeth, and some of the dorm mates swore it could talk.   
  
Or maybe that was just Talbot mumbling in the middle of the night.   
  
The Absorber struck fear and awe in the minds of the other children. Fear from those that had yet to been exhausted and tormented from living in Rosenkreutz; fear for those who liked their powers. Awe from those that wanted to die, from those that no longer wanted to be 'special.'   
  
One touch from the monstrous hand and not only was the flesh consumed, but the ability, personality, memories of the person he victimized. The affects were temporary, for Talbot. Talbot would become a temporary telepath, a temporary pyrokentic. The affects on the victim... were permanent.   
  
The more wishful children who knew Talbot thought that one sucking would rob them of their gift, make them normal. Those who had seen Talbot in action, small demonstrations... practice... with used up, inadequate psychics - failures -, showed what happened to Talbot's victims after he used them up. Mumbling, lifeless husks. Permanent invalids.   
  
No one wanted to touch Talbot, no one except Valentine, who found the Romanian's powers...kinky. The two were a demented pair. The red Valentine, the small, menacing Talbot. The Absorber had black hair, so dark it was almost blue, it had been recently sliced down into a crew cut. When Talbot became nervous he had a habit of grabbing onto his navy locks and pulling until something ripped. It was Valentine who finally took the scissors to him, when he was asleep.   
  
They were a cute team.  
  
Or at least, Sazha thought so.  
  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
"It's always been like this... when I got mad something broke, or fell, or begun to spin around." Nagi mumbled into the darkness. "My mother was terrified of it. She used to... scream, 'calm down', and rush forward, grabbing my by the shoulders, hugging me, crying. She tried to stop it."  
  
Farfarello listened silently. The Irish boy sat prompt against the caved-in kitchen wall. His Bowie knife spun slowly between his fingers.   
  
"Then one day, I got really anger... And when she tried to calm me... Her heart, I would assume, it was her heart, exploded, because a... geyser of blood just started running from her lips. She didn't gag, she went still, very still, and fell on top of me, bleeding." Nagi paused and took a breath. "Strange things happen to the body after it dies. I couldn't get her off me. I had to wait... hours... until my father came home."   
  
"Did he punish you?" Farfarello asked in such a light, innocent manner that Nagi shivered.   
  
"No, he wasn't like that. He was a kind man." He replied.   
  
"He's dead."   
  
Another shiver ran down Nagi's spine. "Yes."  
  
"Yes." Farfarello echoed.   
  
Nagi was struck with impression that Farfarello wanted to talk to him about something, something other than their 'powers.' But the other boy was silent.   
  
The door swung open and Schuldig stormed in. "Fucking cold." Curses in German flowed from the telepath, he stomped his feet and rubbed his sides, gazing around the house in dismay. "Not much damn warmer in here, either."   
  
Nagi raised an eyebrow, "Where's Crawford?"   
  
The kid might as well have announced the winning answer on Who Wants to be A Millionaire because Schuldig's face lit up like a Christmas tree. Of course, he was melodramatic in his answer, smiling like an idiot as he tried to warm himself up, snickering in the fact that he knew something that Nagi and Farfarello didn't.   
  
Schuldig circled the room, his hands slapped his sides, his fingers came up to his mouth to breath upon them and warm them. He made his third trip around the living room before he felt a small, pathetic rift of telekinetic energy trying to trip him. Like a light breeze on his ankles.   
  
"Do that again, it's warm."   
  
"Schuldig."   
  
"Tch. You're no fun."  
  
Farfarello tilted his head to the side. "Crawford?"  
  
"We were jumped, actually. Jumped, would you believe it? I mean, we go from high tech security guys in batman costumes with brain-shield implants to a couple of ghetto thugs." Schuldig grinned. "Oh how the mighty have fallen. You know, this plot just keeps getting stupider and stupider."   
  
Nagi stood up, "What happened to Crawford?"  
  
Pausing in his pacing, hand slapping, smirking, Schuldig shrugged. "Oh don't worry, baby." He purred, "You're ticket to America..." The German paused to chuckle, "is fine. Under the puckered ass and Cambridge vocabulary is a pretty powerful... what fighting style was that? kick boxer, I suppose. He glided like a butterfly, stung like a bee, you've heard the story. Gave them the one-two, teeth everywhere."  
  
Farfarello and Nagi stared.  
  
"...then this pimp with a peacock feather in his hat pulled up in a stretch limo..."  
  
Farfarello and Nagi glared.  
  
"Okay, that part I made up."  
  
The door opened and closed. Crawford trudged in, looking annoyed. Unbruised, uncut, a little ruffled, and very annoyed.   
  
"Oh, look, there's our fearless leader now."  
  
"Are you okay?" Nagi asked.  
  
"Fine."   
  
"We're you really jumped?"   
  
Farfarello asked, "Did you glide like a butterfly?"  
  
The annoyed look darkened. "What *the hell* are you two babbling about?"  
  
The youngest psychics paused, then turned back to Schuldig.   
  
"Okay, I lied about the whole thing. A couple of crack addicts stumbled by, almost fell on top of me, then we headed home."  
  
That didn't explain Crawford's disheveled condition.  
  
"Schuldig decided he wanted to be cute and pushed me into a garbage can." The oracle explained. He moved off towards the bathroom. "Luckily, I'm a bigger man than he and won't exact revenge. Schuldig will suffer soon enough."  
  
"Schuldig," Nagi sighed, "why do you have to lie?"  
  
Farfarello asked, "how do you glide like a butterfly?"  
  
"I don't know, God just made me that way." Schuldig cheerfully replied. Then he stopped, and paled.  
  
"YIYIYIYIYI."  
  
In the bathroom, Crawford straightened his clothes in front of the smashed mirror. He listened to the sound of two bodies slamming into each other and sliding across the floor with a satisfied smirk. Nagi cried out something along the lines of being careful, any sudden movement could take down the whole building, but didn't run forward to stop anything.  
  
They were a good team. Not ready to take on Rosenkreutz yet, but they had potential.   
  
Hiding in Vienna, under Rosenkreutz noses, waiting for the dark unnamed elven man to come and capture them. Crawford had foreseen everything. In his mind he saw a great battle, death, and two possible outcomes. If he kept weaving the red strands of fate, would he be able to swing the future into his favor?   
  
"MY RIBCAGE! NAGI HELP."  
  
Or was he just leading them to their deaths?  
  
Rosenkreuzt would fall.  
  
"RENOUNCE YOUR GOD, HERETIC."   
  
"...Crawford, should I do something? He's turning purple."  
  
He just had to teach them to play the game.   
  
  
  
======================================================================  
  
  
Author Notes -  
  
The plot lags, I know, the next chapter should pick things up.   
  
If anyone would like to extend their opinion, I'd like to know if I'm overusing the original characters (Sazha, Nigel, etc) to the point where they're annoying or nobody cares. Just a concern. Thanks for reading. 


	9. Chapter 9

"Listen all you mother fuckers..."  
  
The Box sat in the center of the Gambling District, a small warehouse that had been converted from a cocaine packing plant to an underground boxing club. Street fighting, in reality, a shady arena where anything went. Fighters placed their name on a roll sheet, won ten bucks American for every round they advanced, twenty if they made it to the semi-finals, fifty for the finals, and two hundred for the winner.   
  
The fighters only won about four percent of the revenue brought in from the wealthy betting class of men who hung in the rafters and less than that from the illegal side bets transacted on the floor surrounding the ring, but it was enough to sing opportunity in anyone's ears.  
  
"Returning Champion..." The announcer's voice faded in and out of the screams.   
  
Schuldig cried out in pain and nearly hit the floor. He wasn't in the ring, he wasn't even in a fight. He was just trying to make his way through the crowd to find Crawford. But the deck fans, husky men who stood a good three or four heads taller than the slight German, were really violent.  
  
Another two elbows flew out from nowhere and smashed into his side and shoulder. Schuldig made a fist, "DAMN IT, RAMBO, FIVE MINUTES IN THE RING WITH YOU AND I'D--"  
  
"Schuldig." Nagi stepped into his field of vision, unmoving and untouched. Schuldig stared and began to, from lack of resistance to the surrounding pawing bodies, sink back to the outskirts of the crowd. The child staring at him rolled his large blue eyes and caught the telepath by the shirt tail, just in time to save him from disappearing under another mass of sweating, screaming beef bodies. "Stop fooling around." Nagi easily yanked him forward and squirmed an opening in the crowd.   
  
The brat didn't have any trouble getting through the mass.   
  
...in fact they seemed to be parting for him...  
  
And Schuldig was being led along like a dog on a leash by a five-year-old, or however old he was.   
  
Oh, the humiliation.  
  
"Bane's down!" The announcer screamed, "Sethron advances to the quasi-finales." The crowd raised their arms and roared.   
  
Schuldig was nearly punched in the face by an upraising fist.   
  
One day...he swore... one day, he would be above this. One day not only would they make room for him, one day their eyes and heads would lower in fear of him. They would grovel, oh yes, they would grov--  
  
"New challenger! New challenger." The man at the mic paused and studied the name on the sheet, making a face. "SCHWARTZ!"  
  
Schwartz. The felt very... his group.   
  
Schuldig balked. "Farfie??" He perched on his toes in an attempt to see over the shoulders of the howling fans and catch a glimpse of the ring.   
  
"...Schwartz?" Nagi grumbled. "Schwartz?"  
  
A man in front of them slapped the back of another, "Look at him! He's just a kid!" The two broke into bawls of laughter. "He-hey, ten bucks on the kid!" They cackled.  
  
Schuldig dove head first towards the front. Nagi remained, unmoving. His gaze was locked on the shoulders of the men in front of him, his face was strewn up. He was perplexed. Schwartz. "...what a stupid name."  
  
Before Schuldig could reach the edge, he heard a body lift from the air and hit the hollow floor with a resounding flood. The color drained from his face. "FARFIE!"  
  
The two betting men felt ill. "Holy shit..."  
  
Schuldig shoved through the last few bodies and nearly fell onto the outer mats. His mouth dropped.   
  
The announcer was shocked, "S-Schwartz...Schwartz...SCHWARTZ WINS! SCHWARTZ ADVANCES TO THE QUASI-FINALS!!!"   
  
The roar of amazement and approval was thunderous. Bradley Crawford stepped away from his opponent, to his corner of the ring, where Farfarello stood, patiently waiting for him. The oracle, Schwartz, smiled.   
  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
{"Where did you learn to fight like that?" Schuldig demanded.}  
  
The American raised his wrapped fists. His breath came to him, easy and slow, everything was in synch. The man in front of him studied the boy with two swollen eyes.   
  
{"...YMCA..." Crawford answered simply.   
  
Schuldig grinned, "You're kidding." }  
  
Big Bobo spit onto the floor and eased into a fighting stance. A kid, he was fighting a kid. The top of Schwartz's head barely came to his neck. He could sit on the boy and break half the bones in his body. This was the punk who took down Bane?  
  
"FIGHT."   
  
{Farfarello slipped under the ropes and jumped to the floor. Crawford issued a curt nod of acknowledgement. The golden eye boy shifted his head to study their leader. He turned to Schuldig. "Crawford glided like a butterfly."  
  
The crowd broke, Nagi squirmed out. Sweat ran down his forehead, like he had just engaged in a strenuous activity. "Judge box says..." he was a little out of breath, "your next fight... ten minutes..."}  
  
Bobo's dark meaty fist swung at Crawford's collar bone, intent on cracking it and putting the kid quickly out of his misery... and career. He gave a shout of surprise as the hit didn't contact. Agile, Crawford ducked away from the swing, taking an easy side step and watching with a sort of sadistic pleasure as Bobo stumbled off balance and collapsed on the stage ropes.   
  
He waited patiently in the center of the ring for the big oaf to collect himself.   
  
An animal-like roar, a cry of a stabbed pig or cow, frothed from Big Bobo's mouth. He twisted from the ropes and came charging at the waiting teenager. Crawford's brown eyes shined under the light of the stadium.   
  
{"Do you know what's always going to happen?" Nagi questioned.   
  
Crawford frowned, considering. "Not always."  
  
"You can't dodge everything that comes at you, the idiot audience will think its a set up." He pointed out. "Crawford, you'll have to take some hits."  
  
"...thanks for the insight."}  
  
Red strings. Tight and twitching. Moving in every direction, waves of crimson water. Scarlet blood.   
  
Crawford threw out his fists, he almost broke them on Bobo's rock hard stomach. The oracle growled and tried to jump back and round up for another punch. A hand, the palm bigger than his face, slapped down on his head.   
  
The floor left his feet. He was dangling, his hair made ripping sounds.  
  
The crowd swept up before him, black, dusty faces that glared outside of the blinding light that surrounded the two fighters. Crawford saw Farfarello, clamoring up onto the mat, only to be thrown to the floor by Nagi, who had a firm hold of his legs. The mad man was slowly dragged off the ring.   
  
A fist.   
  
{Schuldig winced, "I gotta go..."  
  
"What?" Nagi scowled, he checked the clock on the judges table. "The next fight begins in four minutes."  
  
The German held a hand to his head, "I gotta go." Dazed green eyes swept nervously towards the crowd. At first Nagi thought he was looking for an opening to escape in. Then he realized.   
  
He wasn't looking at their bodies. He was looking at their minds.  
  
"Schu..."  
  
"...who? I mean, what? I'm...fine." He started walking. "You comin', Irish?"  
  
Farfarello tilted his head, "I want to watch."  
  
"Whatever." He vanished in the throng.}  
  
Crawford's body flew across the ring like a limp doll. For a moment he was airborne and spineless. An expression of shock wrinkled his red face. Everyone in the stands seemed to hold their breath. Then he hit the ground.  
  
The sound, a child's body digging into the floor, pass the floor, through the floor, under the floor, was reverberating.   
  
Farfarello screamed, Nagi and his telekinesis was barely able to hold him back.   
  
The Oracle's back arched in agony.  
  
"BOBO WINS!!!"  
  
He hadn't foreseen that.  
  
  
======================================================================  
  
Schuldig was found sitting between two trash cans when they came out, an hour later. He didn't raise his head as the three passed. He just remained frozen, mumbling slightly into the bottom of his lip, hair loose and slightly disheveled, hanging in green frosted clumps around his face. His fingers twitched.  
  
"Schuldig..." Nagi's low voice murmured.   
  
The German's chin jerked up.   
  
Nagi took a step back.  
  
"I told her...I told her, May, I told her I'd get that ring. I just have to make a bit more money...and Darien never calls me. He never calls me and I have to feed the kids. Child support's not cheap... because..." Schuldig grabbed his bangs and buried his face in his knees.   
  
The bowie knife whipped into Farfarello's hands. The blade pointed towards his teammate.   
  
Schuldig's shoulder's shook, he let out something that seemed like a sob. "I just can't take it anymore."   
  
Crawford limped forward. The two younger boys parted to give him room. He eased down to his knees. The motion screamed at his throbbing back, but he ignored it. Crawford laid a hand on Schuldig's shoulders.  
  
The oracle and the telepath made physical contact.  
  
The barrier raised and washed into silence.   
  
"...Schuldig..."  
  
"Schuldig...Schuldig...I'm Schuldig?" He twitched, a violent jerking motion that ran from his neck and seized every part of his body. Then, like any passing moment, the tension eased, Schuldig raised his head and looked around as if just waking up. "...fucking hell."   
  
"What's wrong with him?" Nagi demanded.   
  
"In Rosenkreuzt, Schuldig was given medication to help combat the voices that invaded his head. I'm not sure how they work exactly, but they did, and now they're leaving his system and he'll be overcome." Crawford spoke of Schuldig's doom in a calm, soothing voice. "He might have adjusted to our thought process and create a natural barrier against our minds, but the tonight, being in that crowd, must have overloaded him."  
  
Farfarello was fascinated. "He thinks he's someone else."  
  
"Shut up, fuck-up." The topic of conversation growled.  
  
Farfarello twirled his knife and looked generally amused. "Who's the fuck-up?"  
  
"It will happen to Farfarello too, though for different reasons. I'm surprised he's managed as far as he has. Occasional outbursts aside." Crawford frowned, "I would assume his disorder is in remission, but I don't see that lasting long."  
  
Farfarello frowned.  
  
Crawford started, painfully to get back up again. A hand reached out and held onto his arm. He frowned down at the wanting telepath, scowl deepening as Schuldig took command of his arm and placed his fingers on the German's cold face. Schuldig held his hand there and smiled, "Feels so good, feels so numb." He sang.   
  
"Crawford." Nagi warned. His head jerked to the side, motioning them to pay attention to what was happening behind them.   
  
the four turned to regard the dark shadows that approached from the alleyway. Crawford slapped Schuldig's hand away and stood at his full height.   
  
The shadows stepped into the light and leered. "Schwartz?" One said. "Come with us."  
  
The American nodded. The others started to follow but were halted by their leader. "I'll return in an hour." He paused, "Don't worry, I'll be fine." His chin lifted and he sneered at the men, "It's just business."  
  
  
  
======================================================================  
  
  
The Box was an empty skeleton when the lights were out, the crowd gone. The noise silenced.   
  
Crawford found him in the ring, head bowed, engaged in the centerfold of an American magazine. He recognized the title. His step-brother always had a Playboy hiding somewhere in their house. The book's page tucked back to the spine and turned. The reader carefully scanned the next photograph, completely ignoring the Oracle.   
  
"Hn." The brunette released a gentle snort and turned on his heels, prepared to walk out the doors.   
  
"Wait." A heavy English accent stopped him. The body on the stage turned another page and kept reading. Crawford turned, his lips thinned. The dark skinned boy, a teenager, finished the book, lifted his head, and smiled. "Schwartz."  
  
The Oracle waited.   
  
The other boy managed to look offended. He set the magazine down and stalked towards the edge, peering down at Crawford with both arms set neatly on the ropes. "Don't skimp on the niceties, mate. You act like I offended you."   
  
"Perhaps you have." Crawford replied dryly. "I don't like being ignored."  
  
He jumped, "Oh! Aren't you the sassy one? Schwartz..." dark shadowy eyes stared at him from the stage. "...I'm Nigel." He said slowly.  
  
Crawford raised an eyebrow as if to say: yes, and...?  
  
The boy, Nigel twisted and placed his back on the velvet ropes, so that he was facing away from the psychic. He lifted a bronze hand flippantly, "I'm you're bookie, mate."  
  
He feigned ignorance, "...my what?"  
  
'You're bookie, mate.' He knew Nigel would say. 'The man who arranged your matches, professional and all. I'll tell you, you may have gotten your ass...'  
  
"You're bookie, mate. The man who arranged your matches...professional and all. I'll tell you, you may have gotten your ass kicked back their, but you brought more revenue than Bobo and all his buddies combined." Nigel replied. "You're a kid, mate. But you got guts, and people will pay to see you others beat them outta your body."  
  
The fifteen-year-old crossed his arms. An eerie smile was on his lips, not the reaction Nigel had expected to get out of someone he had just insulted. "I assure you, I won't loose next time."   
  
"They'll pay either way. The further you advance, the more money they'll shell out, the more they'll root for you to loose. This here's a high stakes game, it is. We got people working on the inside. No throwing fights and all, but we make sure our high rollers come every weekend and our super stars are there to entertain them."   
  
Sazha slipped into the room, hidden in the shadows. He laid himself against a wall and watched, eyes brimming with an unsettling emotion.  
  
"You'll be paid a percentage, plus the money you win from advancin', it'll be like a regular nine to five, only not nine to five." Nigel said, "you can't beat that."   
  
Lust.   
  
Wine red eyes flickered from Nigel to Crawford, to Nigel again.  
  
"What do you say, mate? Next fight's Sunday night."  
  
Crawford knew who Nigel was. He had seen him in Rosenkreuzt, with the other Talents. A tart, useless boy who was only good for fighting and mouthing off.   
  
The American nodded. "Sunday night then."  
  
What an entertaining child. Sazha grinned and retreated. He had to... check on Talbot. Have some fun. This Oracle, Schwartz, couldn't be the only one enjoying himself out in the city, away from the watchful eye of the Council... now could he?   
  
Nigel, the original, bumped into him in the halls leading to the warehouse's office units. "Whots goin' on, Sazh." He demanded. "'e could get killed in there. Then our whole mission would be fucked to hell. What's the point of waitin' around?"   
  
Sazha placed his hand on Nigel's face, thumb caressing the round cheek, pressing down on the skin as it shivered underneath his grip. Nigel tensed. "Patience." He purred.   
  
The fourteen-year-old wrenched away, demanding at a safe distance, "You're gonna let this birdie fly, Sazha? That's just stupid."   
  
"Nigel," he replied. He sounded disappointed, and spoke in an informative nasal. "don't you know..."   
  
The copy shook hands with Crawford and saw him off to the door, then faded from existence.   
  
"...the higher you fly, the harder you fall."   
  
  
======================================================================== 


	10. Chapter 10

When did everything go wrong?  
  
"You were doing what?"  
  
Schuldig stood at the door of their new two bedroom apartment. It had been almost a month since Crawford had signed up as a permanent fighter at the downtown boxing club. The money he earned was enough to house them, clothe them, and in Farfarello's case, medicate them.   
  
Three days ago a television and cable hook-up had been installed in the flat, and now Schuldig was checking prices for a personal computer - it was an economically sound investment... think of all the money Crawford could save buying the German a lifetime membership to Wet-Naked.com instead of having to pay a weekly cost for Playboy, Naughty Man, Playgirl, and Horses Clowns and Leather magazine? Think of all the paper they would save, it would be environmentally friendly.   
  
A large portion of Crawford's pay check went towards aspirin.  
  
Nagi slithered into the dining room, a carton of noodle soup cradled under his chest. He rolled up the pasta with his chop sticks and slurped them down. Crawford and Schuldig were fighting...again. Schuldig stood at the door, gesturing wildly, looking ready to bolt... again. Farfarello was sitting in the living room, back towards them, nervous and rocking himself... again.   
  
The louder Crawford and Schuldig screamed, the harder he rocked.  
  
It seemed like a normal afternoon to Nagi.   
  
The two 'grown-ups' began circling each other, fists balled. Then Crawford suddenly snapped, turning to yell at Schuldig in English. Schuldig responded immediately and Nagi had to cross his eyes to keep up.  
  
"Wait..." The child finally said, silencing them with his tiny voice. He turned confused eyes at Schuldig. "You did... who... with what?"  
  
From the living room, Farfarello stopped rocking and made a noise that might have been a cackle.  
  
Schuldig fought it, but a smirk crept up his face. And somehow, Crawford managed to look more annoyed than before.   
  
"Mr. Breadwinner here," Schuldig snapped, voice lowering to that lazy seductive drawl it always plunged to when he was being especially sarcastic. His eyelids drooped to half cover emerald orbs, giving him a placid but sinister appearance. His arm moved in time with his speech, waving at Crawford like a game show host did a new car, "with his HONEST job and HONEST money doesn't approve of me..."  
  
His hand came too close to Crawford's face and the American slapped it away.   
  
Nagi placed the lid of his soup to his lips and swallowed the remaining broth. "What?" He asked dully, in the same tone he would use to ask about the weather, "You're soliciting your body for money?"  
  
Any normal person might have sputtered at hearing a eight-to-ten year-old come to such a conclusion. Crawford just responded dryly. "He's selling drugs."  
  
Both Nagi and Schuldig failed to see the problem.  
  
"Which means, he's also taking drugs."  
  
"Am not!" The fourteen-year-old protested.   
  
Crawford grabbed him and tore off his jacket. He raised Schuldig's pale arm up to the light, motioning to the puncture wounds dotting it.   
  
Nagi's eyes narrowed.  
  
Schuldig launched into justification. "Freckles? I am a red head."   
  
Nagi glared.   
  
"Ticks?"  
  
"Schuldig, that's dangerous." Nagi responded quietly, he seemed sullen.   
  
"Drugs are bad." Farfarello supplied helpfully from the couch. The yelling had stopped, he could go back to watching TV.   
  
"No, Farfarello, in your case, drugs are good. Drugs keep you from believing a rare African wasp fly has laid eggs underneath your skin and is hatching." Crawford corrected.   
  
His silver head turned and regarded the others. "Drugs are bad." He said again.   
  
The whole family was against him. A dark sensation twisted in his chest. Schuldig's head lowered until it was almost touching his neck. He slipped away, grabbing his coat and pulling it over his lanky form before Crawford could turn around and even notice he was leaving. The American stuttered his name, but his words were caught by the sound of a door slamming.   
  
Fuck them. All of them.  
  
Wait. Did he just call them family?  
  
  
=======================================================================  
  
  
America. Crawford. Drugs. Schuldig. Hopelessness, Farfarello.   
  
The pint-sized Asian couldn't take it anymore. Day after day he spent cooped up in that house, usually on the couch, sometimes on the balcony. The television had to be almost muted until mid-afternoon, as he was the only one awake in the morning. Crawford worked nights and always took Farfarello with him, and now Schuldig, having less attacks than before - weaker memories and invasions, horrible, horrible boughts of confusion that sent a chill down Nagi's spine - was beginning to leave every night too, usually half an hour after Crawford.  
  
And Nagi was alone. Terribly alone.   
  
"Nagi." Crawford appeared out of thin air. The American knelt down against the back of the couch and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. Nagi jumped at the contact and turned large, endless blue eyes towards him.   
  
For a moment Crawford was very uncomfortable.   
  
"I have a meeting in an hour... there will be a big tournament this weekend with some betters coming from Sweden and Switzerland, but, ah..."   
  
Crawford was actually searching for words, he marveled.  
  
"I was thinking... tomorrow... you and I could go downtown and stock up on the week's groceries. We could, if we had time, go to some department stores. Schuldig needs some new pants... he's grown almost an inch in the last two weeks."  
  
Normally Schuldig and Farfarello did the shopping, Crawford stayed home in bed and reserved his energy. He never talked about going to America. And he was becoming old, fast, and tired, like a man who had won something spectacular, golden, but was now standing back and watching that thing slowly fade; loose its sheen.   
  
He never had time for Nagi.  
  
Nagi wanted to argue that they would need Schuldig to come along to buy the new pants, and he would probably want to pick out his own, alone, with some of his new druggy pals and trashy girlfriends. But instead he just mutely nodded, face red.   
  
Crawford squeezed his shoulder and walked off. A moment later, he was gone from the apartment.   
  
Nagi's spirits soared.   
  
A moment later, Farfarello crawled into his room, sat himself neatly on the child's bed, and asked Nagi to undo the lacing on his straight jacket.   
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Two boys perched on the roof of the opposing apartment building. Crimson and obsidian eyes zoned in on the American Oracle, heading to work or where ever he went pass "Area 2", which was assigned for Nigel to monitor. Talbot and Valentine's job at the moment was to keep watch over the Schwartz boy's home, report who was coming and who was going.   
  
Boring stuff.  
  
"We could just get a rocket launcher and blow it up." Talbot suggested in a voice of soft dementia.   
  
Valentine sniggered and returned to his novel. He spent most of his guard duty reading or napping, his loyalty and dedication to Sazha and his hair brain orders - watch them, protect them, film them - was frail. This was just a vacation to the Talent, a day pass from Rosenkreuz and studies.   
  
Talbot turned to him. "Want to have sex?"  
  
Below them, the porch glass to Crawford's apartment slide open and Farfarello slinked out, holding a VCR above his head. Before he could cast it out over the railing into the crowd underneath, Nagi swooped out, screamed something in Japanese, and slowly dragged Farfarello back inside.  
  
The mad Irish boy appeared to be cackling.  
  
Talbot's head tilted in the other direction, towards the small strip of shops that laid beyond the apartment complex, "Oh look Val..." He sang, "someone just opened a flower shop." 


	11. Author Note 1

Author Note - I apologize for the lack of updating ^_^;; I've hit a dry spell with "Death is Better" not so much in where to take the plot, I know where I want the characters to be in say... two chapters and I knew where and how the story would DWAHAHAHAHAthankyoulordfreyHAHAHA end before I publish the first chapter. I'm just having issues with figuring out how to get there.  
  
Vali the Shamelesss Farfie Rip-off: Bringing about the end?  
  
SunStorm: Not... exactly.   
  
Ah yes and while we're on the self-pity and justification wagon, my writing style randomly disgusts me to the point of not being able to look at it (BECAUSE IT BURNS, LIKE THE LIGHT. IT BURNS) for weeks on end. Hence the... non-writing. *nervous laugh*  
  
Anyway... 


	12. Chapter 11

The world was spiraling out into an unspeakable chaos and all those who watched the future as if it were a Japanese reality show could do was cling to something stable and wait for everything to fall apart.  
  
The curse of the Oracle.  
  
Crawford pondered the mysteries of the shattering universe over a shot of morphine. Three fingers broken in five places had been the result of his last bought in the Box. His audience howled at the carnage, always excited to see a favored and typically victorious player bite the dust. As much enjoyment as his fall had invoked Crawford, the Mighty Future Seer, would have preferred to avoid the pain.  
  
Unfortunately his ever open third eye was focused on something else at the moment.  
  
Like a few other nameless psychics and their untimely demise.  
  
Of course the pendulum could always swing both ways, for or against Crawford's favor. He just had to figure out how to, parish the cliché, get the ball rolling and get his sloth-ing team back on track. Easier said than done.  
  
  
  
The field nurse that attended to his wounds visually jumped as the fifteen-year-old's bones snapped into place with a louder wet snap than she was used to. Incompetent woman. She had a basic grasp on how to patch people up, but look where she was working. Like hell she had an actual degree. Probably didn't even have any real training. "H-how's that feel?"  
  
And he knew about the two idiots stacked out across the apartment from theirs, watching them like peeping tom's.   
  
An unamused chocolate gaze fixed on the pale woman. "It feels..." He drew slowly, making sure to leave no misconception of the malice and annoyance he felt right at that moment, "like you don't know what you're doing."  
  
She looked stunned. "Of course I--"  
  
"Save it." The American actually snapped, dismissing her with his good hand. The woman turned purple, but she did shut up and continued working. She didn't want to take lip from some smart assed kid, of all the fighter's to give he attitude... but she also didn't want to get in trouble for not taking care of one of the company's prized fighters and be blamed for crippling him.  
  
The painkillers began to set in. While the nurse worked on constructing a cast Crawford turned his thoughts to his team and, as always, the future. As affected by his team.  
  
Nagi brought forth no concern. He had adjusted quickly to the ranks and was already imprinting family identities on each young psychic. Crawford knew he had taken on the role of unofficial father to the boy, being both provider and commander of the household and unit. He also offered himself to Nagi as a safe, caring adult that wouldn't hurt him. Surprisingly, Nagi didn't have as much street and rape trauma as Crawford originally thought he might. Not to say the conditioning wasn't there, but Nagi's strong, bitter will kept it pretty damned repressed.   
  
He was perhaps the second most functional member of the quartet.  
  
Farfarello, Crawford was shocked, fell along the same lines. Yes, the Irish maniac still had spouts of hourless ramblings, where he'd randomly fall to his knees, babble and scream until he either passed out, was knocked out, or broke down sobbing. He still hallucinated and heard voices like the stereotypical schizophrenic he was. Crawford was just thankful he wasn't paranoid.   
  
If anything Farfarello was the most lax of the group. Lax as in he didn't fear anything. If a troupe of Sweepers or worse that Sazha character suddenly exploded through their living room window with machine guns, Farfarello would have cheerfully picked up one of his knives and embraced death without a care in the world. Being attacked, being in danger just didn't enter his mind.  
  
Psychotic episodes aside, most of which weren't aggressive or distractive, Farfarello was doing fine. He wasn't sliding downhill into insanity. He wasn't resentful or malicious towards himself, Schuldig, or Nagi. He was coming along swimmingly.  
  
Unlike Schuldig.  
  
Of all the people to fall apart, it had to be Schuldig. The second oldest psychic, the telepath, the person Crawford had chosen to escape with that was more out of... dare he say affection?... than necessity.   
  
One finger snapped back into place with a loud, splintering crack. The nurse jerked to the side, expecting to be struck for her effort. It had happened before. Many times before.  
  
He needed Schuldig, not just for his psychic power - which he couldn't neglect to remember, were essential for his plot. No, he needed Schuldig for...God, was it companionship? He had been fascinated with the German bastard ever since he laid eyes on his pale, smirking face. Schuldig was livid, defiant, an embodiment of all Crawford ever wanted to be. Bound in chains, beaten into submission, Schuldig still managed to survive and not shatter. Not give in. Crawford watched from afar, marveled at Schuldig's ability to pick himself up and keep going, unhinged, violent and passionate in his determination to survive Rosenkreuzt so he could escape into the less restricted Este and wave his smug ass in his instructors face.  
  
Crawford romanticized that it was Schuldig that convinced him of the 'Great Escape.' To look into the red lines of the future and see all it had to offer. A blaze of flaming glory that would either save or kill all of them. A prediction that was worth dying for.   
  
And they would be dying for...  
  
Another finger snapped into place and was sealed into a cast. Crawford frowned. Damn it. The future was slipping like water through his fingers. He had become so focused on his objective to provide for his teammates that he had started to neglect them. Whereas Farfarello was thriving inside his new freedom and Nagi inside his new companionship, Schuldig was falling apart.  
  
Like a puppet cut at his strings.   
  
No. Bad comparisons. Schuldig was no one's puppet. Schuldig had just been under the labored control of the Organization for so long that he no longer remembered how to take care of himself. He was suddenly saddled with this freedom, this lack of distraction and rigor, and he didn't know what to do. So he was turning within himself, to the voices that crumbled his shields and haunted his mind; to the drugs and sex and alcohol that numbed it.  
  
Crack. "Oh! You okay?" The nurse hissed, "That was a little rough. Are the painkiller's holding up?"  
  
"I'm fine." The American replied absent-mindedly. He needed to get Schuldig back on track and ready for what was about to come. Rosenkreuzt. Este. Kritker. Schwartz.   
  
Last night's sleep had slammed him with images and events that were tittering against his favor. A investigation unit from Japan sticking their nosey little faces deeper than they were ordered to go. That pervert Sazha and his pre-teen goons. And lots of blood. Crawford was waiting for confrontation with the Mind Eraser. They stood a chance then.  
  
But those damn florists were going to be a problem...   
  
A wrench in his scheme that could completely screw everything up.  
  
=========================================================================  
  
  
  
"You understand the danger of this investigation?"  
  
Young hands paused over the purple and red arrangement, the child's face eased into a smile, head tipping ever so slightly towards one shoulder. "Don't worry about me. I've been doing this for years."  
  
The agent closed his lips down on a cruel comment directed at their leader, a quip that would have been meant to sympathize with the boy but would have only hurt and insult him in the end. 'This is wrong.' The last thing Ceylon wanted to do was piss off a dead man.   
  
Agent Karl Hossen, codenamed Ceylon, of the international secret police agency known as Kritker had been working the 'Psychic Block' for nearly a decade. He lived in the heart of Vienna, the gates of Rosenkreuz, his heart laughed in bitter, painful tones when he had been informed a team of black ops from Kyoto and Tokyo were being sent to investigate Rosenkreuz up front and personal.   
  
"Rumors of this agency has been generating since the thirteen-hundreds, Kritker has personally been overseeing criminal investigation of Este and Rosenkreuz since 1961." Ceylon reminded. The boy before him placed his hands on the table and assumed a stance of bright eyed, false interest. "Since that time Kritker agents have been lurking in the shadows of the school, making connections, picking up allies, and disappearing. I must admit... I'm shocked to hear that Persia is considering launching an offensive attack."  
  
"Kritker Intelligence theorizes that Este is planning a ritual of some sort to resurrect an old leader. I know it seems sudden, but that's why we're going in. We're just the first wave of Weiss Assassins, four others are being trained in Kyoto and two in Hong Kong. We'll go in, be brutal, and collect as much information as we can about this resurrection thing." Chirped the child.   
  
Kamikaze, Ceylon thought. Blitzkrieg.   
  
"Yeah... uh, what's the difference between Roso-katz and Estet again?" A new voice pondered.   
  
The two turned to acknowledge the late waking second member of the Nippon Team. Another kid.   
  
"Rosenkreuz is the school that trains these guys and finds them, and Este are the people who run Rosenkreuz and hires them out to different organizations." The scruffy blonde jumped off the stool he had been perching on and rounded the corner - Ceylon grimly noted that the assassin's head barely made it over the counter - and beamed at the new arrival. "Coffee, Balinese?"  
  
Balinese waved him off, "Unless you can pull out a gallon jug of espresso or a hooker, I'm not really interested, kiddo." He paused and pulled the waist band of his pajamas up above his naval, "...But thanks for asking."  
  
The boy, Tsukiyono Omi, or Bombay, smiled and went back to his arrangement. Balinese retreated back to the three bedroom apartment attached to their cover location mumbling something about taking a shower and putting on some decent clothing before they opened shop and Ceylon, their contact, took up a watering can.  
  
"I love flowers." Bombay commented upon Balinese departure. He fluffed up the petals he had been working on and pushed the vase away with a satisfied sigh. "Nothing goes wrong when you have flowers. Its like nothing else matters."  
  
Ceylon didn't respond. Personally he always thought the infamous Kitty in the House cover was creepy and degrading. Florists by day, assassins by night? Kritker had a sick sense of humor. If that was humor at all.  
  
'Hell, maybe Persia really thinks Weiss is a bunch of superheroes.'   
  
The door opened and two boys drifted in. Omi greeted them warmly in a high prepubescent voice that staggered with a thick Japanese accent, but got the 'I am so genki' message across nonetheless.   
  
Ceylon studied the newcomers with a frown. Suspicious. Teenage boys didn't just waltz into flower shops on Saturday mornings.. Especially teenage boys that looked like that. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Manson. And they were holding hands.  
  
Bombay leaned over the counter, eyes glowing, "Can I help you? Are you looking for any particular flower?"  
  
Apparently the boy was unaffected by the appearance of the tall Italian with the sweeping spiked hair the color of blood and haunting, almost glowing eyes to match. His mouth split, lips drawing out a curtain of fine white teeth. Was he wearing fake fangs? And he spoke. "A dozen Irises."  
  
"And a dozen poppies." Quipped the short dark haired boy next to him, black eyes alit with something that put Ceylon immediately on his guard but caused Bombay to nod and smile even more politely than before.   
  
"Irises and poppies?" Balinese's voice rang from the back room, the youth reappeared with an apron in hands, skin tight belly shirt wet around the collar and sides from the shower water that clung to his skin. He grinned easily and took his position at the counter. "Those are death flowers. Who died?"   
  
Ceylon crossed his arms, even if he didn't officially work here, he was suppose to keep an eye on these children assassins on-and-off mission. Now that officially included monitoring any suspicious business transactions they might engage in while working in their cover shop. "That's going to cost a little more money than I think you boys have."   
  
Valentine turned on him with his teeth drawn back in a mock grin that's true intent was to, like an animal, bare his fangs at the challenger. "And two dozen Coral Bells." Spoke the shorter boy, voice lucid, though expression not sane. He was staring intently at Ceylon and stroking his own neck with a black gloved hand.   
  
  
  
In an attempt to break the tension, Bombay asked what form of payment the boys wished to make. A credit card appeared in the red head's hand as well as a photo ID, the Japanese boy gratefully accepted it, handed it over to the smirking Balinese, and bounced into the backroom. "Just one moment!"  
  
Balinese processed the order. While the numbers churned inside the register unit, the florist assassin had time to tease the customers. With a wink sent in Ceylon's direction, Balinese set his hands on the check-out counter and swung his weight onto the table. "So, the ol' coven meetin' to sacrifice to Satan or Pan or Lestate or whoever the hell you NIN-Marilyn wannabe's claim to follow?"  
  
"Yes, it's human sacrifice night at the Jr YMCA. Want to come? It's black tie. We're still taking applications." Valentine sneered, "But don't bother calling, they only take virgins."  
  
"Oh, the four-year-old is witty!" Balinese coo-ed.  
  
Valentine tried to keep his face neutral as he struggled to keep Talbot from lunging forward and gutting the obnoxious florist. An auditable rip from taunt the shirt collar he was clinging to cut through the room.   
  
"Yohji! These are customers, be nice!" The return of the genki marked a period of silence between the static trio. Bombay came stumbling out with the four dozen roses, small arms almost unable to hold onto such a large pile. He somehow managed to get it into Talbot's arms and backed away with a nervous laugh. "There you go. Would you like me to separate it into smaller arrangements, it would be easier to carry and might look a little more attractive."  
  
The two psychics exchanged glances, then divided up the huge boutique themselves.   
  
Valentine ran his tongue along his teeth as he ran his fingers through one of the poppies. In front of him Bombay stared with unmarked pride, the poor innocent, honestly thinking he had brighten up someone's day with the stupid flowers.   
  
The stem Valentine had been fingering snapped in half.   
  
==========================================================================  
  
  
  
Farfarello's eye snapped open and he flew upwards so quickly from his sprawl on the couch that he caused Nagi to yelp in surprise.   
  
"Farf, what's wron..."   
  
The sound died on the child's lips as he stared at the elated sociopath. Farfarello hung on the edge of his seat, lips pursed in an excited grin, his whole face radiating a sudden jubilant pleasure that sent shivers up and down his spine. Finally, he turned to the younger psychic and whispered, "Somebody's going to die tonight."  
  
===========================================================================  
  
  
  
Schuldig stumbled against the alley wall, his out-of-control body taking out two trashcans. He remained there for a moment, breath shallow. He ran his fist across his face, his knuckle slowly crossed the damp, blue and green bruise that was beginning to creep up the side of his cheek. A trickle of sweat made its way to the bottom of his chin.   
  
He began to chuckle dryly.  
  
That really annoyed the two men pounding on him.  
  
"You know," whined the taller man, the one who's neck was almost twice as thick as his head and a quarter the size of his chest. He cracked his knuckles irritably, the sound bounced and resounded inside his enormous neck. "if I didn't like pounding into this little shithead so much I'd probably stop... cause the little fuck up seems to be so high off his ass that he's NOT feeling it."  
  
The other sneered, "Beat him anyway. He'll feel it in the morning."  
  
A fist took him by the shirt collar and pressure another punch, this time along the jaw line.   
  
Every night Schuldig stayed up in that shit apartment wondering if they would find him in his sleep. Wondering if morning would never come. A sense of weightlessness filled his guts as he was dropped back onto the filthy alley floor. He laughed again, for the thrill of it. His fingers clenched and he felt blood on his hand. He couldn't tell if it was his own. So he kept on laughing.  
  
The thugs standing over him started speaking about money, and drugs... and collections. But his mind was shutting down and he didn't care.   
  
Schuldig remained on the ground, listening to the thoughts around him. Thoughts of rage, hunger, and despair. The silent screams of Vienna's ghetto, all clawing at him in one ripping clamor. Louder than any drug injection or beating, beckoning him to madness. Those voices... even if he crossed his eyes and concentrated, he couldn't focus on the snarled words of the men speaking to him, everything else was too loud.  
  
"Where is he again..." The German whispered. His hoarse question drew the stunned attention of his attackers. "He's always late. Never around when I need him" He grinned and tilted his head back so that it was resting against the bricks. "Oh, there it is."  
  
Glossy jade eyes turned to the looming shadows.  
  
"Hey," he called, voice void of sanity, so oblivious that it caused the two previously aggressive drug traffickers to take a step backwards. "do you think... it was all a dream and this is me waking up? Or... or do you think this is all a dream... and I'll wake up there again..."  
  
Rosenkreuz...  
  
Crawford said they were going away and would never come back. They would have freedom. Was this freedom? A drug addict getting beaten brainless in the hub of some nameless warehouse district.   
  
Schuldig sighed, "Figures things would turn out this way."  
  
It wasn't as bad a heroine, but it wasn't good either. Any drug that required injections with, preferably, sterile needles was not a good thing. But what was wrong with trying to stop the voices? And making a few bucks while he was at it.   
  
"Shit man, he's really fucked up." Mumbled the second. "Forget him. He's freaking me out."  
  
What was wrong with just trying to forget everything?  
  
But the first wasn't convinced. He dared a step forward and pulled Schuldig to his feet. The younger boy was putty in his hands, deadly limp and still chuckling through cracked and bleeding lips. Schuldig's head bent forward, lolling softly from one shoulder to another, his fingers continued to twitch, and it was oblivious he was lost in his own little world.   
  
A world full of roses, crosses, and dark haired men named Crawford.  
  
They said that the final plummet of the cracking psychic was to break away completely from his own mind and spend the rest of his brief existence skipping from one person's thoughts to another, forever living a fantasy of what he wanted to hear and what he really heard, while his body wasted away into nothingness.  
  
Dull jade eyes lifted to meet the bloody fist that was coming his way. Knuckle bones crushed against his skull and he fell again. Nothingness looked attractive.   
  
Schuldig laid on the floor, hair a mess, features drained. He began to laugh and the two left him alone in disgust.   
  
==========================================================================  
  
Nagi's little rabbit heart began running the 4K as the door handle shuddered with the power of an annoyed kick. The child jumped over the couch, yelling for Farfarello to get in there. Seconds later the small Irish teenager appeared, knife in hand, gaze intent on the rattling door.   
  
The two stared ahead of them wondering if this was the end. If a Sweeper team had come to claim them. Wondering why Crawford hadn't warned them. Wondering if Crawford had taken Schuldig and abandoned them. Another hard kick.   
  
"Open the damn door." A familiar voice hissed.   
  
Farfarello visibly relaxed, but Nagi was still on edge. Hands poised in a striking position, the Asian nodded for his companion to take the knob, which Farfarello did with a bemused raise of the eyebrow.   
  
Crawford stood before them, expression sour. Schuldig was pooled in his arms, face more mangled than the older boxer, incredibly pale, and morbidly limp. Crawford, Farfarello noticed, cradled him gingerly, propping Schuldig's head under crook of his neck as a parent would a sleeping child. A husband a bride.  
  
Farfarello held the door open and couldn't help but grinning. He took in the casts on Crawford's fingers. "Oh good, you two finally broke water."  
  
Crawford glared and pushed the albino aside, going to lay Schuldig on the couch. Nagi dogged at his heels, demanding to know what was going on. After setting Schuldig down and staring at him for a long time, Crawford sighed and ran a hand through his bangs.   
  
"We," he declared, "have problems." 


	13. Chapter 12

His image whispered to him in the dark.  
  
"Crawford..." Blind fingers reached out into nothingness, unable to grasp what they were searching for. A slow smile carved into his face. "Release me. You said we would be free...Let's go now..."  
  
A familiar touch, a hand slowly closed around his. A strong hand. A warm hand. Schuldig curled his fingers into the other and tried to open his eyes. Why did he feel so weak?  
  
Lips brushed against his knuckles and slowly made their way to his shoulder. Schuldig's breath hitched in his throat as he called Crawford's name again.  
  
"Let's go..." He murmured, "Let's go to Tokyo."  
  
"You're not going anywhere." A strong voice commanded him.   
  
Drug hazed jade finally crowned open, expression ridden with dull shock. The hand that had been holding his slowly slipped under the covers, settling on his groin. The touch burned him.   
  
Schuldig never thought of Crawford having such warm hands.  
  
Sazha smiled.  
  
*  
  
Nagi's steady cerulean gazed moved from the unconscious red head to the pacing psychopath. Schuldig was knocked out, but he must have been dreaming. A moment ago he had started to twist and whimper, probably from withdrawal. The flailing was starting to make Farfarello nervous.  
  
Withering, feeble things drew hatred from deadly animals.   
  
"This is all your fault." He accused, not bothering to face Crawford. At the moment the American didn't deserve his gaze. "I don't have to ask to know what you see. What's coming for us." His fist clenched around the sleeve of his shirt. "None of this would have happened if we hadn't stayed in Vienna."  
  
Crawford's mouth thinned and he didn't reply.  
  
A blur of ivory crossed the small bedroom room as Farfarello stalked to Schuldig's side. Nagi jumped with anticipation, sure the Manipulator would go for the older boy's throat, having had enough with his sickening cries and muffled keening. Crawford took in the movement with casual acceptance, not at all surprised when Farfarello toed his way onto the mattress and sat next to Schuldig's pillow. He began to whisper something inaudible and stroke at the red head's hair.  
  
Nagi couldn't help but stare for a moment at this quant, yet surreal scene. Farfarello's ability to totally disarm a situation with his almost sadistic manner of patience and indifference never ceased to unnerve him. If the bloody animal wasn't aware of the danger than was there any reason for him to feel alarmed? Was he the only one panicking hear?  
  
No, he reasoned, Farfarello was just crazy and stupid and didn't know any better.  
  
He wish he had never gotten involved with any of these men.  
  
"Nagi..." Crawford's voice tore into his dark musing. "Do you not trust me?"  
  
There was a sinister glint in that sentence, a pain darker than simple annoyance or doubt. It was as if Crawford was challenging him.  
  
For all bravery he had felt a few sentenced ago, Nagi couldn't bring himself to meet the Americans gaze. "How can I trust you..." He admitted, "You've lied to me at every corner."  
  
The room went silent. Even the raving Schuldig had sobered down. A chill crawled down Nagi's back as it seemed the whole world had stopped to dare him speak against the Almighty Oracle.  
  
Crawford nodded. "Hm. This is all going according to plan."  
  
His exit was silent, it left both Nagi and Farfarello staring after him.   
  
Farfarello drew a strand of Schuldig's hair up to his lips and smiled. "Funny one. You can never tell when he is bluffing. I bet he's good at card games."  
  
Nagi shuddered, "He's gambling with our lives, you know."  
  
"...what did Crawford promise you? He promised me a battle. He promised me blood." Farfarello licked the tips of Schuldig's scarlet hair. "He never promised me extended freedom or a happy ending."  
  
Nagi's reply was cut off as suddenly a body, attached to a repel cord, plunged through the living room window. 


	14. Chapter13

Farfarello watched as everything he and his newfound brethern had worked to obtained was thoughtlessly destroyed in a stream of bullet's from an overly equip semi-auotmatic rifle. His chin was tilted inward, the bone protecting his neck. His lips, which were often described as pouty and angelic, were pulled into a death sneer of one ready to accept whatever end was given to him. 

The glass from the porch window was shattered, the living room table, the television set, the arm chairs were torn to splinters in the blink of an eye as the faceless Sweeper team fired blindly into the darkness. The power had been knocked out, but when? One of the Sweepers must have hit an electric cord.

So bold, so aggressive. Farfarello fingered the kitchen knife in his possession, pondering the newfound vigor of the once subdued posse of Rosenkratz bloodhounds. These were the men who stalked around in the shadows, who dove in like vultures when the prey was weak and dying, who made every kill clean and quiet and untracable.

There was nothing clean and quiet about this.

So why...?

"How did you get here? What are you doing?" Nagi was beside him, back pressed against the wall. The child was in hysterics, his hands wrapped tight against the base of his head, pulling at the hair. "You've been tipped off, haven't you? Crawford betrayed us!"

Why would the Sweepers move in for the kill when only three of their four targets were present.

Farfarello's gaze shifted from the team to the couch where Schuldig laid, dried up and dead to the world. Not even the shit storm of gun fire was enough to awake the gluttonous telepath from whatever self induced coma he had placed himself into. Farfarello stared at Schuldig...

At least one of them would go peacefully.

Someone was going to die tonight.

"Crawford betrayed us!" Nagi screamed, falling back and sliding down to the floor. The boy curled into himself, cursing inwardly at his stupidity. He was starting to develop some serious trust issues.

Three rather large rifles trained on Farfarello's head, where he still stood in position, chin lowered, guarding his neck. He kept the small, practically useless kitchen knife hidden behind him.

"Look at you," a voice said, and Farfarello looked, although he had noticed the speaker a few moments earlier. When he was putting the situation together. "Just... look at you."

Preditory ember met demonic crimson in a gaze that wasn't suppose to last as long as it did. Valentine was smiling, his blood red hair moving softly in the wind, keeping sway with the over-exaggerated tail of his thin leather trenchcoat. The Talent stood upon the small metal railing that seperated the balcony from the long drop off the side of their apartment building. He seemed to meld with the bars, his display of balance and grace inhuman, an indicator of his talents.

"You look like a caged animal." He said.

But then... the Irish Manipulator wasn't exactly human either.

Farfarello smiled, just to prove to the Sweeper team that yes - dispite being away from padded walls, straight jackets, and regular heavy dosage medication - he was still crazy. One of the riflemen had the good grace to lean away from the unnatural grin.

Smart boy, Farfarello thought. He'd kill him first.

The front door opened and another psychic stepped in. This one was small, pale, twitchy looking. In his hands he carried an assortment of oddly clashing flowers. Farfarello only recognized one of them, the tiny poppy flower because that's what they used to decorate the grave of his mother - after he killed the bitch. The scent made his nose curl.

The new comer regarded Farfarello with a cool sense of approval.

From the building opposite, Sazha and Nigel stood on the roof watching in the shadows.

"Our leader just wants the telepath," Valentine negotated. Not that it mattered, he was the one with the goons and the guns. "Just hand him over and we won't have to kill you."

"You'll come back and do it anyway." Farfarello grunted. He was calculating how far he could get with ten or twenty bullets in his chest. He might be able to take out all three of the gunners. But the two Talents?

Nagi...

Valentine shrugged, "You're fun to chase anyway. I'll let you rats stay in the maze a little while longer, I've just been told to get the telepath." He stepped down from the balcony and his movement was liquid. Farfarello followed the motions with a scowl, trying to ignore the Sweepers in favour of seeing how quickly Valentine would stop playing and grab what he wanted.

He almost missed the odd creak and churn of metal that squeaked before him. It was an easy thing to overlook given the current situation. He dared not lower his eyes towards Nagi, for fear of drawing attention to the quivering child and ruining his only chance of...

Valentine moved then... in a slip of red lighting that made the Irish boy dizzy. His body phased from the broken porch enterance to the side of the untouched couch, the slick glow of his red eyes the only thing leaving a trail of the path he just crossed. Valentine drew Schuldig in his arms and lifted him into the air. Talbot thumb wore down on the stems of one of the poppy's until it snapped in half.

That was it. Farfarello was on his feet and leaping forward, knife bared and aimed at the throat of the first Sweeper he chose to die. The team of three reacted with unprofessional surprise, leaning back to fire their weapons. The rifles imploded inward, malfunctioning from the ever so slight crush Nagi had placed upon the barrel's during Valentines dialouge. Shreds of flesh and bone matter sprayed in every direction as the Sweeper's hands were blown off their wrists. Farfarello ended the life of the first Sweeper quickly.

Talbot laughed and lunged towards the albino, making a mistake by forgetting and passing by Nagi. The cowering telekentic lifted his head and his eyes lite up, Talbot soon found himself spiraling through the air and crashing into one of the already destroyed cabinates. The dark haired boy picked himself up with a growl and turned on Nagi.

Farfarello dislocated the jaw bone of the third Sweeper with a swift quick and used the shattered bone fragments from the impaction to end the untalented assassin's life with a second swift delievery roundhouse. The shards of marrow and ivory slide back into the Sweepers throat and cut it open, blood spreads in a thick belch from the man's mouth as he choked to death. Farfarello flipped his knife around and buried it into the back of the second Sweeper, shoving the second's head into the ground and expecting him to lay there and wait for death.

He searched for Schuldig and found him out of reach, in the arms of the enemy who was once against standing on the thin balcony ledge. A harsh wind blew forward through the gape in the wall, moving glass dust and forgotten death flowers around haphazardly. Farfarello's fists clenched and Valentine laughed.

"What're you going to do? Come after me? I'm too fast." The Stream Slipper sneered, "You're just a caged animal and I'm done playing with you."

"Stupid." Farfarello growled, whether he meant the other psychic or himself was unclear. All he knew was that one of them was going to die tonight. He stepped forward, intent on ripping Schuldig from Valentine's grasp.

"Oh," Valentine said, his voice high with mock concern. His demonic eyes even rounded slightly and he tilted his head to the side. "Don't come after me, my Talbot is about to kill your little boyfriend."

Talbot. Right. In his rush to reclaim Schuldig, Farfarello had forgotten about the other one. His neck turned and he let out a gasp of horror, snapping around to tackle the Absorber before the rather cruel looking switchblade Talbot had drawled out of one of his pockets was put through Nagi's face.

Nagi held his arms over his head defensively, his powers completely blown out through panic and stress. He was completely helpless at the moment, weak and in need of protection. Just like Schuldig. And, Farfarello realized, as he jumped onto Talbot's back, he had just chosen Nagi over Schuldig. With Nagi being the most likely he could save.

Valentine chuckled and disappeared into a slash of glowing crimson.

From the other building, Nigel snorted. "They're all bloody idiots if you ask me."

The knife was knocked from Talbot's hands and both boys wrestled on the floor to grab it. In their attempts to capture, the knife ended up just being pushed further and further away from their grasp. At the same time, both psychic held onto each other, biteing and kicking and clawing when the moment opened itself. Suddenly Talbot ended up on his back with Farfarello's hands holding down neck.

From the roof of the other building Sazha smiled as he studied his new prize. A beautiful new German to play with. Completely unaware, helpless. Valentine dropped Schuldig onto the ground and eagerly trotted towards the edge of the roof for a better look at the action below. He didn't seem phased to see his lover in such a compromising position, with the Irish psychopath ontop. "He's got no where to go..."

Sazha ran a hand softly through Schuldig's hair, "Didn't you know, Valentine?"

A scream peirced the air followed by the snarl and growl of something that was defiently not human or beast. Someone was going to die tonight.

"When some animals are pushed into a corner, they turn feral."

000

Kudoh Yohji banged his head against the post of his bed in his haste to get out of it. From the other room he could hear his companion, Bombay, moving as well. Both young assassins moved towards their bedroom windows to search for the scream that had woken them up. They saw nothing out of the ordinary in the cold, dark Vienna streets. Normally Yohji would have crawled back into bed, but whatever hell scream had awoken him from his peaceful and erotic slumber had gotten his heart racing so quickly that he doubted he'd be able to drift off again anytime soon.

"What the hell was that?" He yelled down the hall, poking his head out the door.

"I have no idea, but I bet it has something to do with our assignment." Bombay was already pulling on his mission gear and hoping towards the door. Yohji rolled his eyes, shrugged and went to find a clean pair of pants.

The cold barrell of a silencer against his naked shoulder stopped his search dead in its tracks. Yohji stiffened, hands already raising in surrender. Someone was inside his bedroom... and they were going to kill him.

"I won't apologize because I don't feel sorry. You're in my way." A cold voice informed him before pulling the trigger.

Yohji fell back into his bed sheets, body bouncing a few times. The pounding of his heart slowed to a soft beat.


End file.
